
This morning I came across an article by Freelance columnist and writer John Bambenek entitled "Garbage in, garbage out: the unconvincing world of Wikipedia" and I have found the article online on the very good internet magazine Mercatornet, see here.
Bambenek includes statistics to show that "58 per cent of articles on Wikipedia have no intellectual merit whatsoever" and that in reality most of those who do the editing and writing are not those in the know but rather "technophiles who are generally white, generally male and generally not experts in what they are editing".
He adds,
"Due to the selection bias of authors and editors in Wikipedia, there is a bizarre sense of priority in what is included and expanded in Wikipedia. The article on Britney Spears is 13 pages long, the same length as the article on Henry the VIII. The rule on notability in Wikipedia suggests that articles included should have relevance to people 100 years from now. It is hard to imagine that Britney Spears will even be remembered in 100 years. King Henry the VIII, on the other hand, did found the Anglican Church and split from Rome."
I'm not saying Wikipedia isn't good fun and is of some use esp in discovering a point very quickly but be aware of those who try and use it as an academic reference point.
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