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Criticism of Wikipedia

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Criticism of Wikipedia has increased with its prominence. Critics of Wikipedia include Wikipedia editors themselves, ex-editors, and representatives of rival print encyclopedias. Notable criticisms include that its open nature makes Wikipedia unauthoritative and unreliable, that Wikipedia exhibits systemic bias and that the group dynamics of its community are hindering its goals. See also Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great for a list of Wikipedia limitation.

Criticism of the concept

Usefulness as a reference

Wikipedia's utility as a reference work has been questioned. The lack of authority, accountability, and peer review are considered disqualifying factors by some. For example, librarian Philip Bradley acknowledged in an interview with The Guardian that the concept behind the site was in theory a "lovely idea," but that he would not use it in practice and is

"[...] not aware of a single librarian who would. The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window." (Waldman, 2004).

Likewise, Robert McHenry, former editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica said:

"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him." (McHenry, 2004).

People supporting the idea of Wikipedia counter these arguments by saying that Wikipedia is a more independent source than most traditional encyclopedias. They argue that the reliability is potentially greater than that of a traditional source, since errors can be corrected immediately, and point out that the formal processes used by academic sources (peer review, etc.) are also prone to human error.

Academic circles have not been exclusively dismissive of Wikipedia as a reference. Wikipedia articles have been referenced in "enhanced perspectives" provided on-line in the journal Science. The first of these perspectives to provide a hyperlink to Wikipedia was "A White Collar Protein Senses Blue Light" (Linden, 2002), and dozens of enhanced perspectives have provided such links since then. However, these links are offered as background sources for the reader, not as sources used by the writer, and the "enhanced perspectives" are not intended to serve as reference material themselves.

Systemic bias in coverage

Wikipedia has been accused of systemic bias, a tendency to cover topics in a detail disproportionate to their importance. Even the site's proponents admit to this unavoidable flaw. In an interview with The Guardian, the editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica noted that "people write of things they're interested in, and so many subjects don't get covered; and news events get covered in great detail. The entry on Hurricane Frances is more than five times the length of that on Chinese art, and the entry on Coronation Street is twice as long as the article on Tony Blair." (Waldman, 2004).

This statement was written on October 26, 2004. By March 28, 2005, without counting subarticles, the Chinese art article had become three times as large as the article on Hurricane Frances, while the article on Tony Blair was 50% larger than the article on Coronation Street. Proponents of Wikipedia point to such statistics in arguing that bias by editor favoritism will diminish over time.

Difficulty of fact checking

When a new article is created, you can check whether it is false or not but if something was made up (for instance that President Clinton said something) you cannot be sure that this is false, even if you are a specialist as you can always be doubtful about what you don't know.

Proponents of Wikipedia point out, however, that when facts are in dispute (such as in controversial passages), writers are encouraged to cite sources extensively to support these facts or risk having them removed by other editors; citation of sources may be more reliable than the knowledge of a "specialist" or the presumed "authority" of a print encyclopedia.

Evolutionary improvement

Executive editor Ted Pappas has stated that "The premise of Wikipedia is that continuous improvement will lead to perfection; that premise is completely unproven." (Waldman, 2004). Supporters counter that continual improvement, not "perfection", is the objective.

Criticism of the community

Criticism is also targeted at the community of Wikipedia editors, whose group dynamics manifest themselves in how and by whom articles are edited. Critics of these processes argue that they are actively hindering the production of a quality encyclopedia.

"Flame wars"

Some people who are familiar with interactions between individuals on Wikipedia and Usenet predict that

Wikipedia is going to end up like Usenet—just a bunch of flame wars.

This concern has been acknowledged by Wikipedia's community, which has developed a concept of "Wikiquette" in response [1].

Supporter arguments for why comparisons with Usenet may be inappropriate include that Wikipedia encourages creative collaboration by allowing people to edit other people's work, that Wikipedia has the possibility of enforcing community-agreed standards, and that Wikipedia has the specific goal of producing an encyclopedia.

Disputes and their resolution

Several contributors have complained that editing Wikipedia is very tedious in the case of conflicts and that sufficiently dedicated contributors with idiosyncratic beliefs can push their point of view, because nobody has the time and energy to counteract the bias.

References

This article incorporates text from the GFDL Wikipedia article Wikipedia:Replies to common objections.

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