Wikipedia: Truth or Fiction.*

The emergence of wikis – the collations of user-generated content on a particular subject – has been taking the world by storm for a few years. Wikipedia is the wiki which deals with anything under the sun, and beyond

I think that reviewing briefly this encyclopaedia’s current performance is justified, given the criticism it has been receiving ever since it came into being a decade ago. The main criticism of this web-based encyclopaedia was based on the fact that the website was, and in fact still is, editable by all, except in certain cases, (which discounts it as a consistently reliable source), irrespective of the level of accuracy of the information that it held.

Initially a sharp contrast emerged between various online sources of information such as the Britannica, Curio, Columbia, and Wikipedia. However, the vast amount of reference material that is held on this encyclopaedia today, coupled with declarations made by operators on its commendable gains, have brought about a significant positive change in its visitors’ overall perception of this source.

The site was launched by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001. They experimented by inviting willing contributors to submit and subsequently edit their own articles. It is reported that in its first year of operation, Wikipedia had already posted on its website around 20,000 articles that were penned by 200 voluntary contributors who formed part of this project.

In the following year a two-fold increase was registered and by 2006 the number shot up to 895,000. Currently, the English edition of Wikipedia alone contains over three and a half million articles; a good part of this information is also available in more than 270 languages.

The experiment was undoubtedly a success. In fact, Wikipedia can boast of carrying the largest database of reference material ever put together. Not only that, but it also introduced information on both past and current events, something that other encyclopaedia were not offering at the time – or even worse, were accepting outdated material and source references for publication.

The advantage that Wikipedia possesses over its predecessor, the experimental project known as ‘Nupedia’, lies in the fact that the process of posting information is not hindered by any lengthy pre-analysis exercise. The innovative concept which it introduced was not about striving to process information, but to post it instantly, thus giving other users the opportunity to read and correct it if they wished to do so.

This does not mean that the mechanism lacks monitoring or supervision features. In fact, there are a number of editors who are tasked with identifying misinformation or intervening in cases where contributors or users fail to reach agreement over their conflicting views. However, despite these safeguards, ordinary contributors are better placed to maintain veracity and the relevance of the information provided simply because they are the people who have access to post it on the web.

A further advantage lies in the fact that, contrary to the methods applied by other encyclopaedia, the information gathered by Wikipedia is continually created and updated. I think that in world history, we now have a technologically progressive mechanism through which one may gain easy access to information that is constantly compiled and updated.

However, the veracity and accuracy of this information may still be questioned despite the fact that Wikipedia also deploys a fast mechanism to correct any inaccuracies. As David Runciman rightly said: “The secret to Wikipedia’s success lies in the fact that personal responsibility for particular mistakes can’t be erased, but the mistakes themselves can be.”

Controlling such a strong and constant flow of information is obviously no easy task. One can literally change content entirely, modifying it freely throughout the whole process. Although an automatic three-revert rule (3RR) is incorporated in the system – a mechanism that restricts the editor from making only three reverts of the same content in a 24-hour period – the danger of abuse of the system through posting misinformation decisively and intentionally remains. The only form of defence against this tangible challenge to the integrity of the whole project hinges on one’s capability of recognising and distinguishing those contributors who provide correct and factual information.

This weakness is further acknowledged by one of Wikipedia’s official policies which states: “The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability not truth – that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true.” I may be drawing the wrong conclusion, but it appears to me that while trying to put distance between Wikipedia’s governing authority and the content in it, this statement also seems to support the view that the truth is dispensable in certain cases.

However, the fact remains that no attempts are made to verify the content of displayed pages. There is also no information filtering system to check the truth or inaccuracy of material derived from other sources. Whilst information that is absolutely disparaging and vulgar is removed from the system, the rest is maintained as long as contributors take responsibility for their own work. All this points at the fact that one should thread cautiously when using Wikipedia’s services because it soon stands to achieve authoritative status precisely because it is rarely confronted by truth.

Having said that however, one must acknowledge the fact that other encyclopaedia do not always reflect the truth even though they do strive to reach this objective. Using the same argument therefore, one can comfortably suggest that Wikipedia may not necessarily be breaking any pre-established rules. It must be stated that in a democracy a partial or inaccurate view of the truth leads to counterproductive results and institutions and society should strive to identify and establish one single truth.

In this day and age, using this technological tool for research is by far easier than the conventional book or any other advanced research system. However, this factor could very well lead to a precarious situation where Wikipedia may be the start and conclusion of one’s reading and thus become the default replacement of the truth. No democracy stands to benefit from the long-term impact of this eventuality. Therefore, despite the fact that we have at our disposal a system that is loaded with easily accessible information, we should never give up our fundamental right to seek the truth.

*This article appeared in the Malta Independent on the 25th November 2011.