Wikipedia is the greatest online service created in the internet age. And it’s not for sale.
It’s hard to find information you can trust these days. Powerful algorithm-driven marketing machines flood us with news and reviews about everything from pizza to politics, from fashion to fascism. (See Gallup study tracking confidence in mass media.)
My antidote. I routinely refer to Wikipedia at least once a day for some facts. Often it’s something about science — nuclear fission, primate evolution, or the language of whales. Or it’s about political figures and movements — because Wikipedia avoids partisan spin.
Wikipedia is enormously valuable — effectively priceless. In economic terms, it’s a public service, like a public library or a museum. It exists to serve the public, not to make a profit. But its market value is, in theory at least, as great as Google or Facebook or Netflix.
University professors and high school teachers despair when students cite Wikipedia as a source for their papers. But I encourage students to use it as a starting point, just as previous generations used the volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Consider all the sources in the Wikipedia article, I tell them. Where did the information come from? The best articles list multiple sources with many points of view, I say.
Use the exercise as a way to sharpen your skills at evaluating the quality of those sources and the information they publish.
Because Wikipedia itself says that its information is simply an “open collaboration” in which anyone can contribute, “some articles are of the highest quality of scholarship” while “others are admittedly complete rubbish.”
However, I find Wikipedia’s admission of fallibility, their requests for further sources, and their striving for depth and context to be more reassuring than others’ claims of publishing “truth.”
When I want to escape polarization while searching for information, I go to Wikipedia. Here are some of their standards, from their web page:
“Articles in Wikipedia do not include bylines, and contributors are unpaid volunteers. Whether you claim to be a tenured professor, use your real name, prefer to remain pseudonymous, or contribute without registering, your edits and arguments will be judged on their merits. We require that verifiable sources be cited for all significant claims, and we do not permit editors to publicize their personal conclusions when writing articles. All editors must follow a neutral point of view; they must only collect relevant opinions which can be traced to reliable sources.”
A big advocate for the value of Wikipedia is Justin Arenstein, a leader in investigative journalism globally and founder of Code for Africa.
At a United Nations event in New York, he questioned the value of current media literacy projects of the U.S. and European Union to fight disinformation. These projects aim to teach citizens how to identify false or misleading information in media.
“Let’s also strengthen trust online, by investing into the champions who are creating trustworthy, credible content. Let’s channel a significant slice of the hundreds of millions of dollars currently squandered on ‘disinfo literacy’ into . . . supporting platforms like Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. It’s already the world’s largest source for factual info. Let’s make it even better, especially in indigenous languages.” — Justin Arenstein
Here are some of his remarks on video: “Wikipedia is basically the biggest knowledge content platform on the planet. And it’s excellent because it’s peer reviewed. Every piece of information in there is checked by others, normal citizens, who do not get paid.”
Who ‘owns’ it. Wikipedia’s founder Jimmy Wales has said over and over again that it’s not for sale. The information on its website is a public service and should be treated as such. He doesn’t own Wikipedia. Nobody does, despite rumors to the contrary. And he isn’t trying to sell it — also contrary to the rumor mill.
Again, trustworthy information is hard to find these days. My wife and I subscribe to a number of news publications that adhere to the highest ethical standards and professional practices.
Mostly trustworthy. These news sources don’t always get it right, and they sometimes betray their biases in their headlines, the topics they choose, and the people they interview for commentary. We will pay for an 80% level of confidence. In a lifelong career as a paid, trained skeptic, I’ve learned to live with a certain level of uncertainty.
In addition to paying for news, we donate about $1 a day to Wikipedia, $380 a year. It has arguably the largest worldwide collection of information on human knowledge that has ever existed. And its mission is one we agree with. They care about the quality of their work.
Are you convinced? Trust and credibility have tremendous economic value for publishers of news and information. If you are a publisher, be one of those trustworthy sources. Adopt standards of transparency that will persuade your viewers, listeners, or readers to trust your work and recommend it to others. Build your business model on trust. Some models for building trust:
What are some of the sources you find trustworthy? Please leave me a comment, and I’ll publish the results.
Originally published at https://jamesbreiner.substack.com.