The problem with Wikipedia

Much has been said over the years about the establishment of Wikipedia as the go-to destination for the quick collection of information. There have been people from all walks of life that visit the site and love it, and just as many that criticize it.

The main criticisms have stemmed from it's lack of legitimacy as a source. Not only is Wikipedia a few years old, thus lacking a reputation for objectivity or reliable information over a period of time, but the fact that anyone can edit a page, and post anything they want. No, not just false information, literally everything. The fact that theoretically I could go on to Barack Obama's wikipedia page, post that he's a left wing, racist, marxist who wasn't even born in the United States, scares people, and it should, as it ruins what is supposed to be a site where people can go to get information quickly, as well as killing any chance for Wikipedia to achieve it's goal, a community-oriented website where people exchange information...that is people post information that is reliable and other people read it.

This opinion piece from Jaron Lanier, entitled the "Hazards of the New Online Collectivism" from 2006, argues that it's not really the problems of Wikipedia itself, but that it has risen too fast as an unchecked form of insane collectivism.

The problem I am concerned with here is not the Wikipedia in itself. It's been criticized quite a lot, especially in the last year, but the Wikipedia is just one experiment that still has room to change and grow. At the very least it's a success at revealing what the online people with the most determination and time on their hands are thinking, and that's actually interesting information.

No, the problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous.

Lanier is right, the fact that Wikipedia has really become such a part of our culture that it has the capability to recycle an old danger of collectivism and thrust it on to us in the new form.

I agree, but I don't think that's really the problem. The problem is the fact that there are idiots in this world, and idiots use Wikipedia. As a result, we are always going to have morons posting factually incorrect information. The key is not to get sucked into the vacumn of collectivism, but to also use common sense when browsing.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the internet, common sense is severely lacking.