E-mail: ep737712@ohio.edu
Twitter: @Emma_Perrin17
Wikipedia: the very name strikes fear into a researcher's heart. I was told from the time I completed my first research project back in late elementary
school that it was unreliable. “Anyone can put anything on there!” they said. “You
can’t trust it at all.”
Despite this, I came to love Wikipedia, and all of the
information it provided right at my fingertips. I have found throughout
years of research, both for school and for my own personal enlightenment, there
have been few topics about which Wikipedia has not been able to provide at
least some general and establishing facts. Furthermore, because of its vast web
of information, connected conveniently through hyperlinks, I have made connections
where I never would have otherwise. I often find myself lost in Wikipedia,
jumping from page to page as each topic interests me a little more than the one
before. It’s the perfect resource for someone like me, who loves to contextualize
every bit of information I can.
So I guess it would be fair to say I’ve been a fan for
a long time. Essentially, I have taken Wikipedia for granted, in part, I think,
due to the fact that Wikipedia has remained so familiar and constant, both
visually and elementally, in my memory. It’s always been there, a free and
available source, welcoming me to learn, at least on an introductory level,
about anything I could imagine. But I never before considered the
scope of the Wikimedia Foundation in its entirety. I’ve heard of some of its
project branches, such as Wikibooks and Wikiquotes, but I have never given them
much thought, or considered at all how such an enormous enterprise could be
run.
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| Image source: http://venturebreak.com/2015/03/10/wikimedia-foundation-sues-nsa-doj-mass-surveillance/ |
The main page of Wikimedia's website describes
how the Wikimedia Foundation is a “nonprofit charitable organization,” which
seems remarkable when I consider its position as a “top-ten internet property,”
right up there with huge for-profit corporations like Google, Yahoo!, eBay, and
Amazon, which seem to be innovating constantly to remain relevant in the world of
the Internet (Info from comscore.com). So how does the organization stay afloat solely on what they describe as “generous support”
from the public?
This article, from the MIT Technology Review,
describes how the Wikimedia Foundation “threw out centuries of accepted methods
for attaining” the information necessary to create a comprehensive encyclopedia.
Instead of turning to previous compilation methods, in which experts and intelligentsia
gathered the information they thought valid, the Wikimedia Foundation turned to
the people. In doing so, they became a massive and influential example of
user-generated content- massive in their scale of global reach (more than
35,000,000 articles in 290 languages, according to their own "About" page) and influential in their campaign to
generate content and information for the people, by the people. Hypothetically, anyone with access to the
internet can contribute. There are articles written about everything from the
most significant historical events and most famous individuals, to articles about
my small hometown high school and local community theatre group.
The chart below illustrates the organizational structure of Wikipedia:
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| Image source: http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/ |
It seems obvious to me,
because of the user-generated aspect of Wikimedia projects, it should not be
used as a basis for scholarly research or to confirm data or information for a
news story. I don’t think it is reliable enough to be a trusted source of information
for the public from a journalistic standpoint. But that doesn’t mean there’s not
a huge need for Wikimedia and all of its projects. That is why it has been
successful for as long as it has. If the Foundation can recognize where it stands,
as a convenient, cost-free, and expansive catalogue of surface-level information, it
can optimize its usefulness to society and success as an organization.
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