Wikipedia is one of the most successful social experiment on the web. It is a wiki-based encyclopedia that is totally open. Any visitors can contribute by posting or editing articles. This collaborative effort results in a collective brain dump of the web community. It’s free, dynamic, and supports many languages. And it thrived. It is surprising to many including yours truly, how successful it has became since it is recently launched several years ago. It goes to show the spirit of the community.

I personally find the site extremely useful. With unceasing edits from the community, the promise is that not only content is free but it’s also more up-to-date than traditional encyclopedias. I certainly find this to be true when looking up technical stuffs. Type in AJAX and it spews out a list of all the entries including Ajax the cleanser and Ajax the new way for web development.

I had wondered how expansive is Wikipedia. I don’t use it enough to get a good feel for that. I suppose folks who do research for a living can attest to whether it’s comprehensive. Personally though I am impressed with it.
The first time I really use Wikipedia for real research was when I was reading Vietnamese history. I wanted to know more about several Vietnamese generals and a poet that I came across in my reading. I wasn’t surprised that Google fails to turn up much links to these obscure names. I tried Wikipedia and voila, there were several write-ups on these ancient Vietnamese military figures. Information not available anywhere else. It blew me away…

As with any open project, one wonders about its quality. Since anyone can edit, one has to be concern about the accuracy of the posts. Without traditional editors, it’s all too easy to post inaccurate information.

In the case of John Seigenthaler (pictured), the issue becomes false information. Seigenthaler is a journalist and served in JFK’s presidential cabinet in the ‘60s. The 78 year old man wrote an article expressing his outrage when he discovered an article about him on Wikipedia suggesting that he was involved with the assasination of JFK. 

It’s “internet character assasination”, according to Seigenthaler. When he tried to track down the anonymous author, he was told by Wikipedia’s founder that it’s virtually an impossible feat thanks to federal laws that protect online companies. The article since removed and Wikipedia now requires registration for posting new articles (no registration required for edits of existing articles however).

Seigenthaler described Wikipedia as flawed and irresponsible. The incident represents more than just vandalism. It illustrates the problem with online information. The take-away lesson is that one needs take care when evaluating information posted online regardless of the source. I am sure that there’re other mi-sinformation incidents like this on Wikipedia. Hopefully, they’re exceptional.

That may not mean much to victims like Seigenthaler, but it illustrates that dynamism of Wikipedia; it is self-correcting, however belated. Evil deeds like this one will be corrected by the good deeds of the community. In the end, netizens have to bank on the goodness of the community, that the good will triumph over the vicious.