Wikipedia Makes Learning Easy and Direct

In my younger days, we had a full collection of the Encyclopædia Britannica right on the wide shelving above our fireplace.  I think a door-to-door salesman had come, and my parents bought it for us.  They must've had signed up for a subscription, because we had yearly additions, such as science and the future, and we had three massive dictionaries.  It was a joy to have all of these at our disposal.  I was the nerd who not only read the dictionary, but also took notes on words.  

Then came Wikipedia.

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In The Long Tail, Chris Anderson cited a comparison between Britannica and Wikipedia, partly to put context on the claim that the latter was inaccurate.  On average, across comparable articles, there were about three errors per article on Britannica versus four errors per article on Wikipedia.  In this respect the former was better, but it wasn't exceedingly so, literally just a notch better.  He added that it took Britannica quite a lot of time and ordeal to correct its mistakes, while Wikipedia had a host of people making corrections easily and regularly.  Anderson's book was published in 2004, and I imagine things have evolved for both encyclopedias.  As of 2010, Britannica stopped printing its editions.  Like it or not, it is hard for even the most scholarly, respected work to compete, if it doesn't evolve, and in particular if it doesn't appreciate the reach and breadth of any work produced by people around the world and distributed online in one site or another.

Truth be told, I stopped reading Britannica, once I entered the university.  I had so many more references, sources and forums for learning, of course, that I easily set aside that venerable collection.  Fast-forward to recent years, and Wikipedia has become a godsend for me, like YouTube.  I love films, for example, and here I can learn about the actors, storyline, and production.  I rarely go directly to the Wikipedia site.  I simply search for a film or actor on Google, and the Wikipedia entry is among the top results.  Moreover, I have the added convenience of searching on my Samsung Galaxy Note, so I can stay ensconced on the couch and learn in real time, watching a DVD. 

The issue of accuracy is a crucial one:  Whether any material comes online or in-person, it bears checking out.  If I see anything that seems too good to be true, something that doesn't quite hang together, or things that are more complicated, then I check multiple sources.  I'm writing a book on Donald Sterling, for example, and there were some discrepancies about when that fateful (racist) conversation with his "gal pal" was recorded.  There were some confusion about his age, too.  So I had to search high and low to find the answers.  Wikipedia also includes the references (links) for its entries, so it's an added advantage to be able to check its sources easily and directly.