Wary of Wikipedia? - Chris "Preach" Smith

Sometimes, the danger of having certain groups of
like-minded people together doesn't solely rest in what
they believe in, but what they will do to prove it. The
evidence of it is all around us, with color-coded terror
alerts and new reports. This even extends to ideas, and
leads us into uncertain territory. And with all that said,
I propose this:

Wikipedia needs to be better regulated or disregarded
altogether.

Wikipedia?! What does Wikipedia have to do with anything,
you may ask. Think about it in these terms. Since it broke
onto the scene in 2001, it's grown to be a relied upon
source of information. How many times have you heard of
people trying to settle arguments by looking something or
someone up there? The only online encyclopedia that you
can edit, Wikipedia has become a concrete part of our
culture in a decade. But the freedom one has to edit articles
and entries is a little TOO free. Especially because there's
too much of a reliance on people exercising common sense
and reason when entering information, a risky proposition
in this day and age. For example, when Justin Bieber lost
a Grammy Award to Esperanza Spalding earlier this year,
crazed and bratty Bieber fans took to Wikipedia to edit her
entry and include rude things. Another disturbing trend
that's taking place now is the revision of entries to support
the claims of political candidates, no matter how far off-base
they are. Recently, Michele Bachmann announced her run for
President in 2012. Among other statements, she continues
to claim that John Quincy Adams was a founding father of
the nation. Even though he was EIGHT YEARS OLD at the
time. Now there's jokers who have changed Adams' entry on
Wikipedia to coincide with her erroneous claims.

You can't rely only on people's common sense when some don't
exercise it enough or not at all.

While Wikipedia isn't considered a heavily reliable source of
academic information, it is important enough to be ranked
seventh in the world on a list of most searched websites. And
there are those who are working to make it a valued source
of information alongside news websites like CNN and BBC.
But the issue of free edits without stringent guidelines is a
dicey one. Most edits are removed swiftly, but some remain
with footnotes claiming their bias. Not good enough. You
can't rely only on people's common sense when some don't
exercise it enough or not at all. Look at Craigslist. When it
first appeared, the big appeal was its community ethic and
the owners' hands-off approach to stepping in and resolving
issues that couldn't be handled easily. That came back to bite
them in the butt with the murder of a young woman who was
working as an escort through Craigslist's 'Erotic Services' section,
now eliminated. That situation illustrated a need for a more
structured presence on the site. I may be overreacting, but
we need to vigilant about the information that's available to
all no matter the format. Even if it's online.