Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia is an online
open access multilingual encyclopaedia based on the wiki model ( MediaWiki software ), according to which its
users are,
potential and simultaneously, readers, authors and editors. The project strikingly diverges from the traditional encyclopaedia model, particularly in such significant aspects as its complete opening of the editorial
process to every interested user and the suppression of the concept of “intellectual property” over its contents. With rare exceptions, an internet connection is the only prerequisite to meet in order to have access to reading it and/or participating in its editorial process anywhere in the world. The
articles are produced through a collaborative process, each one being successively edited by every interested voluntary user. Typically, several users contribute to the creation, development and factual or orthographic error correction of each
published article, progressively increasing its quality and length. Beyond basic users there is, however, a hierarchy of further voluntary users enjoying variable permission levels that allow them to, for instance, prevent vandalism situations. In addition to normal editing performed by basic users, it is this special group of users who guarantee the general maintenance of wikipedia’s published contents. At the moment, the portal presents articles in over 250 languages, 14 of which have more than 100,000 articles published each. The English version, by far the most active, has very recently, during September 2007, overcome the 2,000,000 article mark. Meanwhile, wikipedia’s concept has served as a model for the creation of analogous projects, among which the similar wiktionary deserves mentioning. Wiktionary is an online open access multilingual dictionary developed according to the same rationale that guides wikipedia.
As a result of wikipedia’s open nature, however, the authenticity and accuracy of the
information the portal conveys have been regularly questioned. Its critics refer mainly to its vulnerability to vandalism, particularly regarding the potential to have false, unverified or biased information published. Simultaneously, and excluding a single user’s publishing of incorrect information either as an act of vandalism or as an honest mistake, it has been stated that wikipedia’s editorial model favours more consensual information over actual accuracy. On the other hand, there have also appeared, including among academic studies by respected specialists, results defending the quality of the information in wikipedia as similar to traditional encyclopaedia''s and announcing the effects of vandalism as generally short-lived. Regardless of the potential flaws its critics have been pointing out, it is undeniable that wikipedia has achieved amazing success, ranking among the most popular pages on the web. This accomplishment, quite surprising for the many sceptical analysts who saw it as most unlikely, comes to revethe potential advantages of giving the highest possible number of voluntary users, expert or not, open access to the editorial process, in contrast to the traditional limitation to a more or less rigid group of specialists. Besides promoting a fast growth of the number of published articles and, consequently, of the total information transmitted in different languages, wikipedia’s open nature appears to benefit from a positive balance between susceptibility to vandalism and the probability of its undesired consequences to be rapidly spotted and rectified.
Published: September 26, 2007
More reviews about the www.wikipedia.org