Webupon

Wikipedia defines itself as the online encyclopedia that anyone can change. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites, making it a household name. The idea that every man is a scholar is the basis of how Wikipedia functions; anyone, regardless of age or education, can write and edit articles. In popular e-culture, and even the academic community, Wikipedia has become a leading source for research and information. However, there is much controversy over the credibility and quality of Wikipedia articles. Academics are exasperated over the vast amount of skewed information and biased data presented as fact on Wikipedia. The reality argued is that fact, itself, is being reduced and discredited. Specifically in America, the quality of information seems to have lost significance to those looking for a quick reference. Wikipedia has become the alternative to a trip to the library. American culture promotes life at a fast pace and demands results with as little effort as possible, consequently academic accuracy has taken a backseat to convenience.

To understand more about the culture of Wikipedia, we must also examine at its origins. Wikipedia began as an add-on project to Nupedia, a similar online encyclopedia, with formal submissions and review. It was first officially launched in January, 2001 as a single version. Other language translations came soon after as Wikipedia continued to roll and gain momentum on the web. The foundation of Wikipedia is community (comparable to American societal culture). “When Wikipedia was started in 2001, all of its technology and software elements had been around since 1995. Its innovation was entirely social- free licensing of content, neutral point of view, and total openness to participants, especially new ones. The core engine of Wikipedia, as a result, is “a community of thoughtful users, a few hundred volunteers who know each other and work to guarantee the quality and integrity of the work.” is how Tim O’Reilly, acclaimed author of many well-known online publications, summarized the organization. Wikipedia is a “free-content based” encyclopedia, meaning virtually anyone can add and edit articles from any perspective. The man behind the idea is internet entrepreneur Jimmy Wales. Mr. Wales is responsible for the founding and growth of the Wikipedia project. It is plain to see that the American culture he was raised in has undoubtedly affected his views and goals on the mission. Wales promises that Wikipedia will remain a neutral source of information; however, in recent years the organization has been shrouded in controversy and cited on contradiction. An interesting case of how the Wikipedia has been viewed as having an American cultural bias was exemplified in China, where Wikipedia has repeatedly been censored by the government. “Hopefully it is just a mistake and it will be unblocked. It has happened before,” Wales was quoted. I believe this situation is a perfect example of how the American cultural influence on Wikipedia has emerged through its predisposition to information of cultural relevance.

Wikipedia was mocked in “The Onion” with a front-page article (”Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years of American Independence”, July 2006) alluding to the opinion that the freely editable site is an unreliable resource for information with an American cultural bias. This is not the first time that the site has been ridiculed and fallen under contempt for its position and policies on the information it presents and defends. Editors of other, more prescribed, reference works such as the Encyclopedia Britannica have questioned the project’s value and status as an encyclopedia. President and founder Jimmy Wales responded that “Encyclopedias of any type are not usually appropriate as primary sources anyhow, and should not be relied upon as authoritative.” Wikipedia has been charged of demonstrating general bias and has a history of discrepancy; those who oppose Wikipedia argue that the “free-edit” policy and a lack of accurate sources for much of the information make it unreliable. Most Universities disallow students from citing any encyclopedia in academic work, preferring primary sources; often specifically prohibiting Wikipedia citations based on the ‘fly-by-night’ reputation it has developed in the scholastic community. Others that remain neutral to the site propose that Wikipedia has the potential to maintain reliability, but the “consensus over credentials” argument will remain as the primary dilemma for the project, which has existed since the beginning. Technology writer Bill Thompson commented that the debate was possibly “symptomatic of much learning about information which is happening in society today.”

Apple pies and baseball season are just a few generalizations of American culture. The reality is that the modern American society consists of an intricate network of cultural expectations and assumptions. The public has been, generally speaking, quick to embrace Wikipedia despite its long track record of warped sources and unreliable information. This speaks for the substandard expectations of the American society as a whole. Wikipedia parallels some of the most basic, but key fundamentals of American culture. Freedom is one of those Western essentials that Wikipedia emulates. “Freedom of speech is critical for all cultures,” said Mr. Wales, Wikipedia founder and president in a BBC News interview, he continued to comment that “One of the things we see in Wikipedia is that by silencing your own citizens, you are not only preventing them from reading information from outside, but you are also silencing the information that comes out.” He also appeared as a guest on the popular television show hosted by Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central. They discussed Mr. Colbert’s vandalism of Wikipedia and his telling of his viewers to vandalize various pages. According to Mr. Colbert, together “we can all create a reality that we all can agree on; the reality that we just agreed on.” He joked “I love Wikipedia… any site that’s got a longer entry on “truthiness” than on Lutherans has its priorities straight.” He also used the segment to satirize the more general issue of whether the repetition of statements in the media leads the American people to believe they are true. So is Wikipedia really a reliable source for information or simply a web trend that caters to the American way of life?

Although Wikipedia faces constant criticism and scrutiny, it also receives its fair share of praise. Wikipedia won two major awards in May 2004. The first was a “Golden Nica” for Digital Communities of the annual Prix Ars Electronica contest; this came with a $12,000 grant and an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in Austria later that year. The second was a Judges’ Webby Award for the “community” category. Wikipedia was also nominated for a “Best Practices” Webby. In September 2004, the Japanese Wikipedia was awarded a Web Creation Award from the Japan Advertisers Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project. In a 2006 Multiscope research study, the Dutch Wikipedia was rated the third best Dutch language site, after Google and Gmail. Jimmy Wales was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine in 2006. Also in 2006, the Russian Wikipedia won the “Science and education” category of the “Runet Prize” award. In November 2006, Turkish Wikipedia was nominated under the Science category for the Golden Spider Web Awards, which are commonly known as the “Web Oscars” for Turkey. In January 2007, Turkish Wikipedia was given the award for “Best Content” in this competition. As seen in contemporary American culture, expediency sells.

Why are so many Americans abandoning credibility for convenience? The American cultural expectations and values of information (especially web-based sources) has become so radically erroneous and off-center that it seems any text stating to be factual must be so by default. The American World-view has allowed inaccuracy to seep into the mainstream of accepted fact and data. As Mr. Colbert put it when he announced the neologism “wikiality”, a portmanteau of the words “Wiki” and reality, Mr. Colbert defined wikiality as “truth by consensus” (rather than actuality), modeled after the approval-by-consensus format of Wikipedia. This, in many aspects, is a direct reflection upon American culture and how it functions in society today, specifically referring to the sub-American “e-culture”. He continued to jibe sarcastically at the American cultural influence, “You see, any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true. … If only the entire body of human knowledge worked this way. And it can, thanks to tonight’s word: Wikiality. Now, folks, I’m no fan of reality, and I’m no fan of encyclopedias. I’ve said it before. Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington had slaves? If I want to say he didn’t, that’s my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it’s also a fact. We should apply these principles to all information. All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true. What we’re doing is bringing democracy to knowledge.” Although humorous, the sarcastic remarks seemed to hold some truth to them. In a sense, Wikipedia is attempting to bring an American democratic culture to international knowledge.

Fox News Channel reported, “If you think the middle name of British Prime Minister Tony Blair is ‘Whoopdeedoo,’ you’d not only be wrong, but you probably got your information from Wikipedia.” The report went on to discuss a tool which allows users to track IP addresses used to edit Wikipedia articles, and listed many unexpected locations that have been discovered editing articles related to their locations. An example used in the report was an IP connected to Wal-Mart, which on one occasion had been used to change a statement about Wal-Mart’s wages being lower than competing stores. Wikipedia, to some, has become not only a utility for reference, but a tool to change history. This is an evident threat to the consistency of information in general. There are currently over two million articles in the English Wikipedia alone, the project is run by a handful of volunteers and programmers that work to, and claim to, keep Wikipedia free of bias and vandalism. At a rate of four hundred words per minute, twenty four hours a day, a person could read nearly twenty million words in a month. According to the Wikipedia statistics page, in 2006, Wikipedia grew by over thirty million words. In other words, a sleepless, fast reader could never catch up with Wikipedia’s new content. Reading the current incarnation at that rate would take over two years, and by the time they were done, so much would have changed with the parts they had already read that they would have to start over. Reviewing articles and content editing of that scale simply cannot be precise enough to ensure the quality of data, although it seems that the American public holds no concern.

Will Wikipedia have an ultimately detrimental effect on American educational culture? I think so. In the nineteenth century, American authors such as James Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry David Thoreau, John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Samuel Clemens (just to name a few) established American literature on the world scene. I find it odd now that every American regardless of accomplishment, education, or dedication to a subject now has the opportunity to essentially ruin it in the name of the American belief structure. J. LaVelle Ingram, Ph.D. describes the American World-view in this way, “American worldviews mean that: 1) Time focuses on the future rather than the past; 2) that we should be able to control nature; 3) that people can be counted on to do the right thing given the chance; 4) that an individual’s wishes, needs and aspirations should be counted as more important that the groups’ or families’; and 5) that what one does or accomplishes is more important than the way s/he conducts her/himself.” Wikipedia has developed a corresponding World-view of its own based on many of the same factors seen in the American World-view. For example, I found this quote by Mr. Wales on his personal Wikipedia user profile; “…I trust you…See that link up there ‘edit this page’? Go for it. It’s a wiki world!” The American outlook that “people can be counted on to do the right thing given the chance “ is personified in Mr. Wales’ statement. Ironically, Mr. Wales’ page is vandalized several thousand times a day. The Western concept of time focusing on the future, rather than the past is also a major outline in the Wikipedia project. Mr. Wales was quoted in a Slashdot.org interview addressing the topic, “Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” The “sum of all human knowledge” seems to have taken a very “wiki-slant”. In truth, it seems that Wikipedia, and the general American public, are more concerned about the future of the speed of information than retaining the facts of the past.

Although I have examined both sides of the story, my American societal conditioning seems to retain its grasp on my research habits. Questionable knowledge at your fingertips has replaced legitimate sources. With the growth of Wikipedia, and the evolution of American culture, the value of information is certain to plummet. The cultural habituation of Americans and simple charm of Wikipedia seems to outweigh the potential threat. If Wikipedia continues to decline in accuracy and quality, Western culture will undeniably take the brunt of the harm. Will I continue to use Wikipedia? The answer is, most likely yes.

Works Cited:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_culture#References

http://www.lifeintheusa.com/

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Wikipedia_in_culture?t=1.3.#2.1.

http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2006/04/wikipedia_and_the_future_of_fr.html

http://stats.wikimedia.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4450052.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_in_culture

http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/28/1351230

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_culture#References

http://eneida.over-blog.net/