An Expanded Definition Of Wikipedia
Starting from the year 2001 on January 15th, the world came to know about a web-based tool sophisticated enough to have knowledge of anything in the world. This same website would soon become an unreliable source for research. Founded by Jimmy Wales to support his other web-based tool called Nupedia, Wikipedia was created to be open to the public to allow anonymous members to contribute articles or any material. Unexpectedly growing at such an alarming rate, they scratched the “now-abandoned project” and made Wikipedia their primary focus. Now with millions of articles, thousands of editors, and written in hundreds of languages, Wikipedia educates lives all around the world and continually improves and updates itself to remain one of the most current and largest reference website there is. In fantasies and legends of heroes with unimaginable power, some heroes don’t have the luxury to use that power at will. Power comes with risks and consequences, and in this world, Wikipedia being such an indestructible tool for knowledge and advancements, it’s wistfully almost useless to our everyday college students, professors, and researches. The price for having the world’s knowledge in your grasps makes that proof of knowledge useless. According to Wikipedia (2018), Wikipedia is created by “hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world.”
Knowledge comes at a price, and in this case that price is not knowing what you’re learning is true or fictional. Compared to other encyclopedias such as Encyclopedia Britannica or the Columbia Encyclopedia, Wikipedia is horrifically less accurate, less reliable, and less proficient as time passes by. The increase of knowledge spewing out into the website allows for an increase in inaccurate and false statements due to the inability to keep up with the knowledge written within. Allowing Wikipedia to be authorized as an approved source is simply asking for disaster and may result in one’s own research as incorrect or indubitably useless.
Yet, most of us still use Wikipedia casually as if it’s a center of facts and a sea of unmistaken knowledge, which logically is correct. Unlike a research paper, your brain isn’t going to be judged or graded for its accuracy. Simply accepting the fact that most of everything you learn from Wikipedia is correct allows for future use. Wikipedia’s intended use is to ultimately educate and that’s what it does. From learning technology, History, Science, or Geography, Wikipedia can provide more than enough accurate data and information to interest or educate an individual to a certain extent. Many can argue that Wikipedia is a valuable source of information and should be accepted as a valid citation but even the founder himself warns us not to use it for academic purposes. Wikipedia is for critical learners and individuals who can use this resource for their own benefits outside of any academic assignments.
