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Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?
swestcott writes to mention an article at the Chronicle of Higher Education site, wondering if Wikipedia will ever 'make the grade'? Academics are split, and feuding, about how to handle the popular collaborative project. Due to the ease of editing correct information into nonsense, many professors are ignoring it. Others want to start contributing. From the article: "As the encyclopedia's popularity continues to grow, some professors are calling on scholars to contribute articles to Wikipedia, or at least to hone less-than-inspiring entries in the site's vast and growing collection. Those scholars' take is simple: If you can't beat the Wikipedians, join 'em. Proponents of that strategy showed up in force at Wikimania, the annual meeting for Wikipedia contributors, a three-day event held in August at Harvard University. Leaders of Wikipedia said there that they had turned their attention to increasing the accuracy of information on the Web site, announcing several policies intended to prevent editorial vandalism and to improve or erase Wikipedia's least-trusted entries."
...and as such, should not be used as a reference in any research above the grade-school level. Period. If I were teaching a college class and anyone used encyclopedias in their paper, I wouldn't give them above a C.
There's no "news for nerds" story here. No more than there should be in the validity of the content of MySpace, or YouTube, or Craigslist, or whatever else.
It's not a technology story. It's not a geek story. It's not even news. It's a magazine article best left to journalists on a slow news day - presumably where all these wiki submissions are coming from. The only good thing about these stories is that there is some chance that a few more people will realize how utterly untrustworthy Wikipedia is, and finally stop quoting it for any and all reasons - as many sadly still do on Slashdot.
And my answer to the question is... the day Wikipedia is accepted as a valid source on anything other than anarchic trivia is the day that Fox News has finally won the battle for Truthiness. We geeks must forever fight in that battle on the side of truth light and justice. For the good of all beings Truthiness and Wikiality must lose.