Wikipedia

I originally respected this online source. As it always comes up close to the top of any search results, it is always a tempting place to start. Knowing that there are links to official websites (should this prove elusive) is another reason to enter the site. The objective prose and mass of citations also seemed to be an indicator that this is a trustworthy source.

However, my view is turning. Trying to register was an arduous process, being told that I must not use any real names or handles I am known by elsewhere; and yet I must come up with a new user name that is not already in use in this vast community. I pause to state my annoyance with the overuse of this word, and its inappropriateness for online groups. Communities that never see ever another and often do not know a real name seems to me to be in breach of the meaning of a word that means togetherness and mutuality and support. Online communities are really about bored people having this virtual and minimal interaction whilst remaining anonymous. Communities cannot have a mask. These are particularly frightening when internet sites are taking over real human interaction. Online forums should be in addition to, not instead of: and a way of meeting people that you would otherwise not.

My second aside is a rant on surveys - which will only take a few minutes of your time, they claim. I took the survey on Wikipedia as it was the only way that I was offered to get in touch about a matter. Unlike a written one, you cannot flick through and think: this is too long or too personal; and there's nothing in an paper survey to prevent you from skipping questions, whereas online you are presented with a page at a time and made to check a box before proceeding. We live in a world too full of preset responses; and often surveys don't allow respondents to explain anything outside of their precious categories. I was promised that I could 'help shape the future' of the site, but all I was able to contribute was whether I am single, have children, speak certain languages and had to rate a myriad of uninteresting questions. This is my final offshoot - that online, there is rarely a simply place to get in touch with the company. We are filtered though FAQs which are never anything I want to ask, and getting in touch means that you never do touch anyone real at the other side of the site; instead you click around the site, becoming frustrated.

Wikipedia prides itself on being not for profit, but asks for money on the top of every page. In the survey I took, it asked if I knew (I felt it implied) this wonderful resource was not making money; I did, having seen the excellent Stephen Fry meet its maker on his travels round America on British television last weekend. And then the Wikipedia survey asks - have you donated? And if not, you are presented with a whole list of why you haven't. 'Why should I?' was not one of the options and the one that most fitted my reasons.

Academia teaches the analysis of the reliability of sources. Although Wikipedia's footnotes and calm, unopinionated writing sounds very professional if not scholarly, I have a major concern. Who are these volunteers who make these articles? As a contributor, you are encouraged to be nameless in case of later disputes. On the one hand, we are asked to give out our name and other details haphazard where it might be unsafe or unnecessary online, and I resent having to register to perform so many of simple tasks. Yet names and writing are vital intellectually - for property as well as credibility.

As much as assuming that only people with degrees and or journalistic background have knowledge or the rights to contribute is elitist, Wikipedia goes too far the other way. From its 'about us' page, it's clear that anyone on the internet can register and edit an article. It is clear that Wikipedia has policies and standards, and that the additions are monitored and that anything below these standards are not allowed to remain on the site, but I have found things which should not have slipped through and have - examples shortly.

Wikipedia also assumes that consensus from this community is the best method of checking accuracy. But what if a large number of contributors are ignorant, whereas a few do have accurate knowledge? The notion that what is posted on Wikipedia can be multiple edited by users also weakens the quality of the site. Too may cooks ... and cooks who haven't necessary been to catering school. I am all for avoiding hierarchies but an editor in chief - what Wiki doesn't have - is someone offered the job because they have skill and experience, which is something the general public do not.

Since it is thrust in my face at every search I do, I have browsed Wikipedia on a great range of issues and found inaccuracies in several. Look up Satanism (as I did for some Halloween research) and the second line tells you that Satanism is 'thus an Christian denomination'! This shocking statement, offensive to both Christians and Satanists, is mercifully given a citation which may impress some enough that this is therefore a fact to quote. The footnote leads to Dictionary.com, which defines Satanism as

'the worship of Satan or the powers of evil; a travesty of Christian rites in which Satan is worshipped; diabolical or satanic disposition, behaviour, or activity.'

Nowhere on the cited page does the preposterous above sentence in Wikipedia gain any credence, which is ignorant and shows no sensitivity. The rest of the Wikipedia article is reasoned and shows knowledge of the breath of Satanism and that actually the dictionary.com reference is misleading and Satanists might charge Dictionnary.com with what I have just fired at Wikipedia.

In looking up Fopp, the British music film and book chain, it is clear that Wikipedia is out of date. True, this Glasgow born indie-feeling and much loved company had to close all its shops suddenly last year, but more branches have reopened than indicated on Wikipedia's entry. For instance, I saw shopfitting for one in Bristol's Broadmead shopping area last week, meaning that 2 of an original 3 Fopp stores are back in the West Country capital; and I suspect that several others have joined it.

Investigating the Suffolk legend of the Green Children of Woolpit revealed a poor cut and paste job from another site. While I can be impressed that a local English legend has been included on such a large and global source, this entry demonstrates both the paucity of the research which goes undetected, and the importance of local knowledge. Under the theories heading, the contributor has misunderstood the article which it has blagged and seems to have never looked on a map or been near Bury St Edmunds, the nearest town to the legend. It states (copying from the linked site and its only adult traceable source - mysteroriouspeople.com, written by Brian Haughton) that Bury St Edmunds is 40 km from Thetford; AA's route finder site confirms my estimate of it being half that distance. A critique is made on the basis of this inaccuracy: that the bells of the once huge abbey at Bury could not be the bells these mystery and miscoloured children heard at such a distance. The writer forgets or does not know that Thetford had as many as 18 religious houses during the middle ages, including a significant abbey of its own; and 20km across a flat land might be more realistic distance to hear bells. Suffolk's 600 parish churches make it the second highest concentration of them in Britain - thus there are plenty of sources of ding donging, near and far. The paragraph about having to pass through Bury St Edmunds to go from Fornham St Martin to Woolpit has no point: I am waiting for a 'therefore...' which never comes. Why Thetford Forest is settled on as the forest in the story (apart from being a large one in the area) is not explained. Perhaps this speaks more ill of Paul Harris, whose theories are being quoted, whose apparently most widely accepted 'ingenious hypothesis' certainly is not. Wikipedia offers no critique and does not point out these problems - showing how the internet can simply regurgitate mistakes from site to site.

Perhaps this really becomes an article on, do we trust the internet? As homework is now researched there as much as in libraries, and people rush to their computers for the answers to questions on any given matter, this is an important point. I have learnt enough about publishing from the inside to know that being printed is no guarantee of accuracy either, but the internet includes sites with less qualified and stringent editing. I was able to add to that Woolpit Wikipedia article that there are inaccuracies in it without explaining who I was, my sources, and it was posted immediately. Shouldn't that be proof that the information of the Wikipedia needs scrutiny before being believed, let alone cited and worse still given credit for.

Lastly I repeat a bugbear on volunteers - that all that huge information on Wikipedia is there by people who have researched and written in their own time and without earning - another reason not to donate. Worst still, it's hard to enter world of writing careers, but on Wikipedia, you do not share your name and therefore your work cannot be headhunted: it is made clear that this is not a networking site. Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia told Stephen Fry that he is not one of those internet billionaires - a question I suspect that was primed for public information; but Wales earns more than all those hosts or writers on whom he relies for his empire to work. No doubt Wales has found the money to pay for his baby to be on the first few search results on any search engine - often coming up before the official site.

Allow me one more aside - for I am a celebrant of multilateral thinking. This episode of Fry in America where he met Mr Wales involved Mr F dropping in on a body farm where research is done to aid the catching of criminals and comforting grieved relatives. Stephen's last comment was that he is considering giving his body to such research, and that he would like to do something useful in death - as he has done so little in his 50 years of life. I hope that even mild fans will rush to contradict Stephen, whose modesty is touching - something I did not glean from Mr Wikipedia. I see from Wikipedia Review that my cynicism is shared.