Criticism of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a large, popular free encyclopedia written by volunteers. There is some criticism of Wikipedia.

## Main criticisms

- Anyone can change Wikipedia. Because of this, some articles may not be entirely correct or accurate. They may show false information.
- There is vandalism, where people make bad changes to articles on purpose, or with bad intents.
- Some articles do not have good sources. Wikipedia needs good sources in order to show the information is correct.
- Sometimes one group of people change Wikipedia more than others. Because of this, that group's interests and views may be covered more on Wikipedia. This is called systematic bias. This is bad because Wikipedia needs to be open for everyone to read and change.
- Wikipedia has images and content that may be gross or hurtful. Some of this is not good for children to see. There are articles about these things because Wikipedia thinks it is important to not censor information.
- There are many rules on Wikipedia. Some people think these rules are bad or confusing. These rules may stop new people from changing articles.
- The people who change Wikipedia can argue and bother others.
- The people who run Wikipedia have a lot of power which is not correct.
- Wikipedia has a strong bias against women as editors and against content for or about women.

## Critics of Wikipedia

Wikipedia editors know that the site should not be used as a primary source for research. A librarian, whose name is Philip Bradley, said Wikipedia does not have authority. For a printed encyclopedia, the people writing it have to make sure the information is correct, or they could lose their job. Some people say calling Wikipedia an "encyclopedia" means that people trust it even when they should not trust it. Some librarians, academics, and writers of other encyclopedias do not like Wikipedia as a source of information. Many schools and universities do not accept Wikipedia as a source, except most of them do not want _any_ encyclopedias used - they want primary sources instead.

## Criticism of the Wikipedia community

Kat Walsh, a person in the Wikimedia Foundation (which runs Wikipedia), said Wikipedia was easier when it was made. Today, there are many rules and it is more difficult for new people to change articles. Many people who change Wikipedia have stopped, and the number of article changers have gone down since 2006. In 2006, Jimmy Wales said most of changes on Wikipedia are made by about 500 people who "all know each other". But most of the changes are made by people who sometimes change articles, or who do not have Wikipedia accounts at all.

On some articles, many people bother each other. Sometimes good arguments are ignored because they are not popular with the article changers.

To stop vandalism, some people have administration powers. People with administration powers can delete articles, stop a change on an article, and stop users. There are special rules to stop people with administrative powers from taking too much control, but the ideas of people with administration powers can be over the ideas of other people.

## Related pages

- Wikipedia administrators
- Simple English Wikipedia

## More reading

- Andrew Keen. _The Cult of the Amateur_. Doubleday/Currency, 2007.  (substantial criticisms of Wikipedia and other web 2.0 projects). Listen to: Does the Internet Undermine Culture?, NPR interview with A. Keen, Weekend Edition Saturday, June 16, 2007.
- Sheizaf Rafaeli & Yaron Ariel (2008). Online motivational factors: Incentives for participation and contribution in Wikipedia. In A. Barak (Ed.), Psychological aspects of cyberspace: Theory, research, applications (pp. 243–267). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.http://cyberpsych.yeda.info

## Other websites

- Multiple-choice self-test as a review of your understanding of this article, and as part of a Wikiversity course about Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia is a real-life Hitchhiker's Guide: huge, nerdy, and imprecise - by Paul Boutin, _Slate_, May 3, 2005.
- A thirst for knowledge by Andrew Orlowski _The Guardian_ April 13, 2006
- Wikipedia: magic, monkeys and typewriters - by Andrew Orlowski, _The Register_, October 24, 2005.
- Can you trust Wikipedia?  - by Elvira van Noort, _Mail & Guardian_ (South Africa), November 7, 2005.
- Unreliable (adj): log on and see - by Rosemary Righter, _The Times_, December 9, 2005 (Subscription needed for full article)
- Online encyclopedias put to the test - by Stephen Cauchi, December 14, 2005.
- Wikipedia science 31% more cronky than Britannica's - by Andrew Orlowski, _The Register_, December 16, 2005.
- Does Wikipedia win through the "wisdom of crowds"?  by Jack Schofield _Guardian Unlimited_  December 19, 2005
- Turf Wars: Wikipedia spars with a splinter site for truth  by Julian Dibbell _The Village Voice_ May 2, 2006
- The Great Failure of Wikipedia (transcript ) by Jason Scott Sadofsky at Notacon 3 in Cleveland, Ohio
- Neil Gaiman: What Bears Do On the Lawn, May 11, 2006, criticism of Wikipedia by noted author and essayist Neil Gaiman.