Wikipedia - Friend or Foe?

Here's a little story for your afternoon enjoyment. For some odd reason, I decided to Google "Friend or Foe?" before posting this blog. I guess I was interested in seeing how popular my choice in title was. Ironically, the second of 1,990,000 plus hits for "Friend or Foe?" was a Wikipedia article about a former game show with the same title. Apparently it only aired for two years (2002 and 2003) and was hosted by 90s MTV VG/grunge icon Kennedy. I didn't even know Kennedy was still around, let alone the fact that she was hosting some game show that I had never heard of! Yet now I am plenty informed on both Kennedy's more recent television contributions and this show that flopped after shortly more than two years. Though I'm none the better for knowing this, it's all in thanks to Wikipedia.org.

When our prof, Chris, asked us to shout out our feelings about Wikipedia prior to doing any real research on the website, I was the second to comment. I openly declared my distaste for the website exclaiming, "I hate it!" The reason for my response is purely due to the fact that my students think it's the be-all and end-all of research. I admit now that I was unfair to judge Wikipedia so fast, especially since I used to "ask Jeeves" just about every question I could think of during my younger years either out of sheer interest or complete boredom.

So I read these assigned readings about Wikipedia, and I found myself getting more and more satisfaction out of its purpose. I never got the impression that it was trying to be a source for middle school students as they write research papers on The Civil War. Rather, I started to understand that the idea behind the site is to post current and unbiased information as it happens. I was especially struck by the passion through which 23 yr. old Natalie Martin controlled the "Virginia Tech Massacre" page back in 2007. Perhaps this was because of my obsession with following this horrible occurrence and my desire to watch the news as much as possible to learn every new detail as the tragedy unfolded. I even thought to myself, "How would the day have been different for me had I turned to Wikipedia for my breaking news information?"

What I learned about Wikipedia is that there are a number of people in the world who make its accuracy, reliability, and seriousness their main goal in life. As sad as this seems, when news breaks these "admins" take over and edit stories for hours. They sort of reminded me of hall monitors in elementary school that take their jobs a little TOO seriously, but I'm comforted knowing that they are no-nonsense types who just want to get information to seekers without putting forth a bias. And what American can't respect that?

Prior to the readings, I thought a bunch of know-nothings just got on the site and typed random information to confuse naive researchers (see Wookieepedia to understand where I was coming from.) After reading these informative articles, I feel like one of those people I claim to dislike. These are the types of people who judge everything before they have truly looked into it and are against all forms of technology or anything having to do with the future. I have since learned that Wikipedia is a beneficial search engine for certain tasks. In fact, I may even be checking it when the next major world emergency occurs, or when I want to learn more about failed game shows that ran for less than three years. I just won't be turning to it when I compose my Master's research paper next summer, and I think the admins will forgive me for that. :-)