One of the things I love about Wikipedia is that every day it's good for a new headline and usually a new laugh. What's amazing about that is, there are so many web sites online it's hard to imagine why one should be worthy of so much digital ink. The only possible explanation is that to so many, Wikipedia is more than just a hobbyist site for those with plenty of time and a modest amount of knowledge to share. It is a mission to change the way the world operates, part of that whole Web 2.0 mentality that has recently been ridiculed. Following the near-constant flow of negative information on Wikipedia, including this troubling development, many people have wondered about the future of Wikipedia. Two fans of the service have even placed a bet over whether it will exist in five years.

I'm going to take a position some might find unexpected -- I predict Wikipedia will easily survive for five years, and then some. I have never been openly hostile to Wikipedia. I'll confess that when a search has come up with a Wikipedia entry at the top, I've often followed the link to learn more. I think a better question than whether Wikipedia will exist in five years would be: What exactly will Wikipedia be?

I find it hard to believe any thinking person at this point honestly believes it to be an authoritative reference tool capable of replacing a peer-reviewed work. There are today still many Wikipedia fans who hope for this, and apparently think they are the peer reviewers. But many of these people come from the social or physical sciences. They know the rigor -- and the accountability -- that comes from solid peer review. When the founder of Wikipedia edits his own bio entry 18 times, 7 times to remove a reference to a former colleague as Wikipedia's co-founder, there's obviously an accountability problem.

The basic problem is that Wikipedia can do a really good job getting something just right, and then somebody can come in and screw it up. I've worked at dozens of magazines, newsletters and other publications over the years, and every organization always had a rigorous editorial structure to ensure a problem like that couldn't occur; when a story was final, it was final. There is no finality in the world of Wikipedia. This makes sense with an online site that is designed to change as society changes, but it doesn't make sense with fixed areas of knowledge.

I have linked to Wikipedia entries in the past in this blog. To date I have avoided doing so in any of my scholarly papers, although I have edited other scholars who had such links and have left them in. The problem with such links is that the site I would see when putting in the link may have no bearing on what the reader would see a day, a week, a month, a year later.

In the future, when I stumble across Wikipedia I will continue to read it. In so doing, I will assume there is some truth and some falsehood to anything I'm reading. Then I will use that entry to go about more serious research, finding preferably primary sources or at least peer-reviewed sources to conduct the actual research that will be cited in my work.

Wikipedia will survive because it has come to symbolize so much more than just a collection of encyclopedia entries. Its supporters can't let it just go away like the Pets.com puppet. Some of those supporters may hold on to the hopes and aspirations of the site. But more likely than not, others will use it the way I will use it -- as a launching point to serious, reliable scholarship. I doubt many teachers will allow their students to cite it in papers, and no self-respecting editor will allow a reporter to rely on it for background research. Wikipedia will play a useful role in society, just not the role the messianical supporters of the site would like.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:14 AM | Free Culture Movement

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