Can Wikipedia be trusted?

March 8, 2007 · Filed Under Uncategorized · 1 Comment 

wikipedia scandal rocks trusted again unreliable

A scandal has rock the very foundation of Wikipedia and its reliability, it was reported that 24 years old Ryan Jordan contributed or modify over 20,000 articles in Wikipedia, he claimed to be a professor of religion and comes from a reputable university.

“I would strongly urge people not to trust it. You really don’t know what people are up to — what their real agendas are, whether there are corporate interests, political interests, economic interests behind the people posting.”

One of the many weakness Wikipedia has is the anonymity of the contributor, content can be re-wrote for a personal gain and this can be done easily by anyone for their own political or business gain. People actually take advantage of this anonymity and damage Wikipedia reputation as the biggest online encyclopedia.

It has come to the extend that the history department at Vermont’s Middlebury College banned students from using the site in citations, this would follow suit by many universities around the world as more scandal emerge. The only solution is to hire real professors as contributors, to offset the money need, Wikipedia can always place advertisement in the articles as a main source of income instead of relying on donation.

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