My thoughts on Wikipedia....

A friend and fellow student of mine, Andrew Steadman, did a fascinating presentation on Wikipedia asking the question about its status as a "unstable" source. I started thinking about the unstableness of many former texts and wondered at the fact that Wikipedia might be thought of the way it is, might stem from other things than its actual components. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. It isn't in print (yet). It is at the mercy of the emotions and biases of the writers. When calling it these things, it seems strange that other texts aren't called into question as well. I was taught that the English Oxford dictionary used to have biases towards different races that were under the umbrella of the English rule. I know that some of the other editors have had emotional responses to subjects in their publications. I know that Encyclopedias, dictionaries and many other publications that span a length of information definitely are a collaborative effort. Also, most of these publications are now going online, some are contemplating doing away with print indefinitely.

Are we just biased towards Wikipedia because of the fact that these writers are not "professionals"? Do we usually check the credentials of all our reference books? Or do we leave it up to the publishers? The whole thing starts to take on to me layers of emotions/fear/prejudice and reasoning.

I know that Wikipedia is a wonderful invention, but it needs to find credibility in order not to remain a sidenote to research done on Google by the average user. One example I have of its amazing qualities, is the uses that reference librarians in my library (art library) use Wikipedia for, because of its many unique properties, not in spite of them. Artists that are usually under the radar, are usually pretty frustrating to find. There arent many actual research sources for many of these artists, and the reference librarians really rely on Wikipedia to give even cursory information about these people. Im not saying it is always correct, but in the day and age of fast information for the patron, it is a viable source!

Thoughts would be great!