I read an article in the CNN Politics page about a maneuver to filter history and create a message on Wikipedia, the global online encyclopedia. I’m purposely not taking a political stand on this issue as I want to focus on the importance of information and the dynamics of the connected economy. However, this CNN online article points out the beauty of what Wikipedia has become.
Wikipedia Is A Source
Make no mistake, Wikipedia as a source of information is a force of truth and completeness. And, when abused, or used to limit, hide, slant, or otherwise change the reader’s perception of available known truth – the connected economy in which we live and the crowd that it connects will prevail by highlighting the errors, and the errors of one’s ways.
You can read the CNN article for yourself (follow this link), but basically the communications director for one of the US presidential candidates was caught making around 60 edits to the candidate’s Wikipedia encyclopedia article. The communications director incorrectly assumed that Wikipedia was an online platform to use for political gain through repositioning facts in the candidates history. This is just not the fundamental purpose of Wikipedia, and people are watching.
Ironically, Wikipedia keeps a complete history of every article. And through its article authring guidelines, every fact must have a reference and be checked. Any and every change made under incorrect pretenses can be backed out (and commented as to why) in the curating process – which is what the CNN article points out. Hooray! for truth at Wikipedia.
Most educational institutions around the globe have recognized the value of crowdsourcing, credentialing and publishing information is far more valuable than any minor risk of error. Moreover, it is well documented that errors are corrected at light-speed by the various curators that make up the “crowd” that monitors and actively improves the completeness and grounding-in-fact for content published in the online encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is just NOT a commercial website for marketing or campaigning purposes, but a simple, honest, and truthful place for anyone doing research to find historical information that is credentialed and fact-checked by those publishing research, history and facts in articles with no bias. To be clear, “credentialed” means “anything that provides the basis for confidence, belief, credit, etc.” This is precisely what we want from an encyclopedia.
When an entity tries to use Wikipedia to filter the facts through various lenses, the digitally connected global economy of information will prevail. There just is no place in our connected world for obscuring truth. Public information is public, and Wikipedia protects that – even (or especially!) when it comes to politics. Think what this transparency and openness might do to help us achieve World Peace.
What do you think?
