Imagine a World Without Wikipedia

Alan Parker and Mick O'Shea's And Now For Something Completely Digital: The Complete Guide to Monty Python CDs and DVDs should really have been a pamphlet, or better yet a Web site. Listing the home videos, books and records that Monty Python released is simply not enough material for an entire book - a footnote to a book, maybe, but not an entire book. To pad out what they had, they decided to add in detail a synopsis of every Monty Python movie, quotes lifted from interviews of the Monty Python members and most interesting entire entries from Wikipedia. Was this the first book to reprint Wikipedia articles? Maybe just the first to credit Wikipedia as the source. But certainly another milestone in the history of the Web site. Not only have Parker and O'Shea accepted Wikipedia as a reliable source for research, they have decided it's text is worthy enough for reprint. Wikipedia has become that important. If we want to learn anything about anything it is no longer the "orld Book Encyclopedia, the Funk & Wagnnall's Encyclopedia or Encyclopedia Britannica that we grab from our shelves. The days are long over of filling our homes up with 25 - 30 volumes of leather-bound books, two volumes which are the index, only to find that the subject we are looking up is not included in that volume or mentioned only as a footnote in another entry. Wikipedia has almost everything, and it is always the first thing we look up. At the public library I have seen people on their computers looking up information on Wikipedia when right behind them are shelves and shelves of every encyclopedia, all up to date within the past five years. Those things gather dust while the keys to the library's computer wears out.

When I was growing up there was a character in kids books named Encyclopedia Brown. He was a boy detective who got his smarts from reading every volume of his family's encyclopedia from Aardvark to Zymology. The little brat probably even read the index and preface. But from that he retained knowledge of just about everything on the planet and was therefore able to decipher clues that even his detective father could not. Whatever Encyclopedia Brown knew from reading the encyclopedia it would pall in comparison to what is available in Wikipedia. You would never hear of a "Wikipedia Joe: Boy Detective" because by the time Joe got through reading everything on Wikipedia he would be middle aged. And even then he would have to start over because of all the updates to old articles. I tried looking up "Encyclopedia Brown" on Wikipedia. It did not mention the history of the character ( which I suspect was inspired by the Sherlock Holmes story "The Red Headed League" ) but did give a definition of the character, his first name "Leroy" which I did not know, and a list of every published Encyclopedia Brown book. I am sure that eventually someone who knows details about how Donald J. Sobol came up with the character will add to the Wikipedia entry, perhaps Sobol himself.

When researching this article on Wikipedia the first thing I did was look it up.....on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, Wikipedia was started in 2000 as Nupedia, a free online encyclopedia which was contributed to by experts. A side project called Wikipedia was started which allowed submissions from anyone. The reasoning was this: the experts only knew so much, while throughout the Internet there were millions of others who knew other bits of information that they could contribute. This is why so much can be found on Wikipedia. But it is also why it is not trusted. What is to prevent someone from writing absolute bullsh*t. Perhaps writing down rumor or urban legend as fact, or being mistaken about something, or simply being a joker who deliberately writes something untrue. Wikipedia has volunteers who go over articles looking for obvious mistakes or vandalism as they call the deliberate mistakes. Others who notice something incorrect in an article may rewrite it. Obviously there is no way to keep Wikipedia 100% accurate. But then again mistakes have been found in the best encyclopedias. The difference here is that while mistakes in Funk & Wagnalls remain there for as long as that volume exists, mistakes caught on Wikipedia are changed almost immediately by those who find them. Entries are often challenged by other readers and are put on probation while the initial contributor is asked to submit citations of his sources. If he is unable to then the article is removed or edited.

Today Wikipedia is in danger. Because it is a free Web site that is not ad-based, it relies on donations. Unfortunately, with the poor economy, donations are down. Every page on the site begins with the words "Please read: A personal appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales" and a link to a page where Wales begs for donations. Without the financial help, Wikipedia could go poof and join Pets.com and Jumptheshark.com as a famous and defunct Web site. All that content gone in an instant. Wikipedia just a footnote in history. Worst of all we will have to go back to those musty encyclopedias and back to the public library whenever we need to look something up. The world would be a lot less convenient once Wikipedia is gone. Could we ever live without it?