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Uses and Abuses of
Wikipedia
An HTAV training seminar I
attended recently was a very enjoyable session with much debate
about pedagogy, sources, referencing, and resources. We also spent
a fair amount of time on issues of copyright, plagiarism, and
social networking. The biggest debate that surfaced, not for the
first time at an HTAV event, concerned the use of Wikipedia as a
source for students.
Apparently some history
teachers have been telling their students for years not to use Wikipedia, because they feel that it
is too open to unprofessional comment. One person shared the
tale of a colleague who warns students against Wikipedia, and then
purposely goes onto the site to sabotage the information so that
she can catch them out! (Presumably creating a new pseudonym each
time: the editors do eventually catch up with saboteurs and ban
them. Frankly I prefer good, honest, old fashioned Nazi-style book
burning to such cynical vandalism, but I digress…)
Some of us were able to assure
those present that the sheer quantity of review on the website
means that, in the long
term, the articles are
often better than most of those available through a published
Encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s own article on the Reliability of Wikipedia (accessed on 18/7/10) includes the
following:
An early study conducted by
IBM researchers conducted [sic] in 2003—two years
following Wikipedia's establishment—found that "vandalism is
usually repaired extremely quickly—so quickly that most users will
never see its effects" and concluded that Wikipedia had
"surprisingly effective self-healing capabilities".
An investigation reported in
the journal Nature in 2005 suggested that for scientific
articles Wikipedia came close to the level of accuracy in Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of "serious
errors". These claims have been disputed by
Encyclopædia Britannica.
I am particularly impressed
that Wikipedia notes anything that is disputed or inadequately
referenced. Wikipedia is more demanding of footnotes and references
than most academic publishers, and certainly far more comprehensive
than I have seen in most classroom textbooks. A brand new Wikipedia
article may be the work of whichever crank has put it up, but bad
articles do not survive long. It can take time for public opinion
to settle a new article down to a more reasonable document, but it
usually happens. This is one of the reasons that the editors of
Wikipedia have banned many organizations, particularly religious
cults, from commenting about themselves on site.
It is valuable therefore for
students to realize that change happens, and even more valuable to
track how it evolves. There is a History tab at the top of each Wikipedia page, which
links to the number of changes to the article over time. This can
be revealing on, say, Scientology, and downright terrifying on more
immediately emotive issues… Try any article on ‘terrorism in X
country’, and check what changes were made just after the most
recent attack! A serious discussion with your students about
sources can usefully include looking at one of these
‘History’ tabs.
Wikipedia can be an excellent
tool for students, as long as they recognize its weaknesses. To
demonstrate this, I suggest a nice little exercise to give students
before they are permitted to use the resource on a regular basis.
Ask them to find a controversial article, then click on the
Discussion tab at the top of the page. There, they can
examine the arguments behind changes that have been made. Any topic
likely to provoke controversy is a useful start. If you can
find one that relates directly to your students areas of studies,
consider that a bonus.
Pointing out that there can be
a debate about any particular topic is only the tip of the iceberg.
To go a bit deeper, start looking at issues of ‘cultural’
censorship, such as politically correct modifications to
terminology, or the assumption of automatic acceptability of things
that are clearly still debatable. For example Wikipedia’s
Global Warming
Controversy article
included under ‘Discussion’ (accessed on 6/3/10):
I noticed that the Related
Controversies section dealing with the skeptics anti-science
positions on the regulating of ozone depleteing [sic] chemicals and
the risks of passive smoking were removed on March 29... Why was
this allowed? It is quite clear that the skeptics simply did not
want it known that they have resisted the scientific consensus on
other notable issues as well. It was quite relevant because it lets
people know just where these liars-4-hire are ideologically coming
from, as spokespeople and spinmeisters for industry not for
people.
(As most of the ‘climate
skeptics’ I know of are mathematicians, geologists, and magnetic
scientists, I don’t see how they can all be guilty of being funded
by the tobacco lobby… Look at the debate on Wikipedia about
how Wikipedia seems to be editing away references to
‘Climategate’ revelations!)
Political biases are equally
evident. It may be worthwhile to point out to students that in many
articles the cultural biases of the authors and editors require the
words ‘conservative’ or ‘right wing’ in front of any opinion from
right of centre (e.g. Keith Windschuttle), but reverse qualifiers
are rare about opinion from left of centre! See Stolen Generations for instance. The consistency of such
usage implies that ‘right thinking people’ instinctively understand
the application of ‘conservative’ to imply ‘opinion that might be
easily discounted’. A similarly opprobrious epithet was American
practice in the McCarthism era (then, one might have referred to the
‘communist’ Stuart Macintyre), and your more advanced students
might like to consider such ironic parallels.
The very best cultural
censorship examples are those that reveal the worst inherent
weaknesses in the Wikipedia system: the ones that reveal the biases
of the majority of its reviewers… Americans! My current favourite
example for this is the article on the War of 1812.
The War of 1812 saw the United
States opportunistically join the Napoleonic Wars against Britain in the hope of: A) getting
‘free trade’ with Napoleon’s blockaded Empire; B) invading Canada
while Britain was busy; and C) undermining British support for the
various Indian nations resisting American expansionism. Their main
excuse for war was the ‘civil rights’ of ‘recent immigrants’:
usually foreign nationals who had deserted their military service.
In fact, the British were as likely to grab navy ‘deserters’ back
from US flagged ships in 1812, as the US were to seize army
deserters in Paris during World War Two. (Excuses are rarely the
real war aims… see Weapons of Mass Destruction (accessed 18/7/10) as an excuse for
taking down Saddam Hussein: “As Paul Wolfowitz explained: "For
bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass
destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree
on.”)
Britain had no real war aims
against the United Sates in 1812 beyond how to get out of it
without losing anything essential, such as the vital blockade of
Napoleon’s Empire. This they easily achieved. At the end of the war
the British had fought a number of half-hearted and inconclusive
military engagements in North America; achieved some minor
‘victories’ (such as landing, burning Washington the ground, and
leaving); and some ‘defeats’ (Americans celebrate one British raid
was that was defeated, but which happened after the peace treaty was signed); and then were
generally simply happy that the whole thing was over (allowing them
to concentrate on Napoleon again). Total economic effect on
Britain, small. Total political effect on Britain, vanishingly
small. Most British people, then and now, hardly noticed the North
American skirmishes against the background of the worldwide
campaigns of the Napoleonic wars.
Canada had a war aim, to avoid
conquest by the Americans. This they clearly achieved, and most
Canadians have always believed that their side ‘won’, because
America failed in a war aim that was clearly supported by the US
President and many US Congressmen at the time. The political effect
of the war in Canada was to effectively unite new British
colonists, traditional French Catholics (who feared rampant US
Protestantism), and displaced ‘Loyalist’ American refugees hounded
out of the US after the previous war. Canadians can claim that
‘winning’ this war helped create their nation.
The US had many war objectives,
but it is hard to find one that succeeded since British impressment
of sailors had ended before the war started. The United States attempted
to break Britain’s trade blockade of Napoleon’s Empire, and failed.
It attempted mass attacks on British commerce, and failed. (Initial
surprise attacks by American heavyweight ‘frigates’ were quickly
been beaten back, and the surviving frigates were laid up in port.
It is estimated that the US captured about 800 British ships,
losing about 1,900 in the process.) It attempted to invade
Canada several times, and failed. It finished the war with
its trade destroyed, many of its ports and cities smoking ruins,
its internal economy in collapse, and completely unable to pretend
that it had achieved anything like its war aims. (It is
claimed in Wikipedia that the great American ‘victory’ was
Britain’s subsequent disinterest in the rights of the Indian
nations to resist American conquest. This is the only ‘war aim’
that the British ‘lost’ – or at least pursued no harder than
previously – as a result of the war. The British did not however,
return the thousands of slaves they freed, many of whom fought for
Britain and received land grants in Trinidad or Nova Scotia…
Britain did later pay some compensation to some slave owners, if
that helps?) So it is quite amusing that Wikipedia has consistently
defined this conflict as “a draw”. Some American reviewers like to
claim ‘both sides won the peace’, but Germany got to say that about
World War Two without claiming that conflict was a
‘draw’.
Drawing students’ attention to
Wikipedia’s very specific biases - in this case a very American
patriotism - is only the first lesson they can draw from the
discussion of this issue. See for instance the highly amusing
subheading within the War of 1812 Discussion segment (Archive 13): “Impossibility of consensus because Wikipedia
is not entirely American”. The, I hope unconscious, irony of
this statement is best reflected by the commentator (jmdeur) who
offers the apparently tongue in cheek statement… “The header for
this section says it all - obviously Americans are the only people
who have misconceptions about this conflict.” In fact this is an
excellent lesson to learn in regard to all sources, as most
published history books reflect their own biases.
(It is only fair to comment
that American nationalistic jingoism in the War of 1812 article has been much improved since this
archived debate. The recent version of the article (18/7/10) is
considerably better than it was. Wikipedia still won’t concede that
America lost, but it does note that Canadians have a right to
believe that they might have won something... a bit…
perhaps…)
In some ways Wikipedia is
superior to most textbook sources in that the debate is,
reasonably, transparent. I used to give my Cold War students
out-takes from books by the pro-Communist ‘Progress Press’ for a
nice contrast viewpoint to mainstream Western texts, now I could
refer them to Wikipedia’s discussion of the viewpoints. Where the
‘Stolen
Generation’ debate
previously involved providing students with out-takes from Robert
Manne or Stuart Macintyre and ‘the right wing’ Keith Windschuttle, now you may well be better off
referring students to summaries of the debates in Wikipedia…
provided they note the pejoratives and at least glance through the
Discussion. Wikipedia’s History Wars articles (particularly the Black Armband Debate or Stolen Generations subheadings – accessed 18/7/10) have a better
analysis of the different viewpoints than most of the (appallingly
partisan) textbooks I have seen.
After students have digested
the weaknesses of the Wikipedia system, they will be in a good
position to make careful use of its strengths; that you can look at
both the History and the Discussion of any topic is the greatest strength. It’s helpful for students
to recognise that an article with no history or discussion is as much of a warning
sign as one with too much! The real advantage of Wikipedia is that
it can be its own best analytical tool. That the investigation will
introduce students to the concepts of historiography via their
preferred medium is just a lovely bonus.
References: Every reference in
this article in
italics is the title of
a Wikipedia page. Every quote notes (in brackets) the date it was
accessed, as suggested by the - quite respectable really -
APA
Style guide. Every
Wikipedia page has its own references attached. How you want to
handle that in essays is up to you!
Nigel Davies
(Medieval Education) | 