Study of Wikipedia

With the introduction of the internet there has been a steady stream of information coming out of it. Some of this information comes from sites that report news from around the surrounding area and also the world. With so much information going both in and out of the internet it may seem cloudy as to what truthful information is and what is not.

"Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia and, as a means to that end, an online community of individuals interested in building a high-quality encyclopedia in a spirit of mutual respect." (Wikipedia) Wikipedia can be used as a credible source when you understand what it is and how the content is compiled along with the policies enforced. It is not a dictionary, scientific journal, and newspaper, publisher of original thought or tabloid page, or social network. It is also important to note that, while the material is consistently checked for accuracy by contributors, the content is uncensored. (Wikipedia) As an online encyclopedia, the content provided must abide by policies to maintain the validity and relevance of the content and must be verifiable with a published reliable source. This is one of the core policies by which contributors must abide.

Wikipedia allows anyone to write or edit articles without having to provide credentials, prove expertise or even reveal ones name. People believe that because anyone is allowed to add or edit information that wikipedia isn't a credible source. But I disagree, in the article Young Adults Credibility Assesment of Wikipedia stated that in 2008, Wikipedia had over 684 million visitors but of all the visitors only 2 percent were"active contributors with many of the contributions being made by a very small percentage of that two percent..." Also all articles have citations for every section and the sections that don't cite its sources or have sources with questionable credibility, have headers that state that the sources are questionable or n/a. People are able to see for themselves what is credible information and what is basiclly someones opinon. Also, with millions who use wikipedia and the thousands of volunteers the inaccuracies will be weeded out and there's a continual improvement /accuracy of information. Thomas Chesney wrote in article in the online journal First Monday called An empircal examination of Wikipedias credibility , the article reported on a study done where two groups of researchers with various areas of specialization were asked to review Wikipedia articles. One group read articles within their own areas of expertise and the other was given random articles. After reading an article they were asked to assess its credibility, the credibility of its author and the credibility of Wikipedia as a whole. The results of the study were a suprise " No difference was found between the two group in terms of their perceived credibility of Wikipedia or of the articles authors, but a difference was found