Wikipedia and the credibility of UGC
Reading this Register article, it’s prompted me to ask how we can be sure of the reliability of content that’s been created by volunteers, and moderated by volunteers, almost entirely in their own time.
A prominent contributor and editor, whose profile claims two PhDs, turns out to be a 24 year old with no PhDs at all. He’s clearly an expert in something, he’s accrued a lot of support in the Wikipedia world, but nonetheless he’s not what he said he was, and you have to question anything he’s written or moderated on that basis.
Surely it’s common sense to be sceptical when you’re unsure where information has come from. Yet many of us rely on Wikipedia for all sorts of information. Is it an exception? What else do we rely on today that could be coming from questionable (or at least unproven) sources? Is there something intrinsically better about relying on the Economist, Oxford University Press or the BBC because it’s their job to tell us about the things they tell us about? What does this story tell us about branding and the value of brands? Is it important that some person’s or company’s income depends on something being right, when we’re deciding whether to trust it?
