Educators often deny any possibility of Wikipedia being a reliable source, since it’s often considered the starting point of research. On multiple occasions, I have witnessed my fellow students getting marked down for citing Wikipedia.

Wikipedia currently ranks as the eighth most popular site on the Internet and first under the “Encyclopedia” category. It’s a tool that  I have always depended on to assist me in any form of research, whether it be a page on historical monarchs like Henry VIII or a current musician like Kanye West. 

Wikipedia is a wiki which means that anonymous editors, without the requirement of any identification, can write whatever they want on the website. This means there will, of course, be biased, out-of-date information and even false information and hoaxes. Admittedly, some of these hoaxes are quite humorous, like the “Reality” Wikipedia page once being entirely replaced with the words: “It’s all a myth.”

However, the readers and administrators of Wikipedia are constantly reading and monitoring articles. New edits can be found on the “Recent changes” page of Wikipedia. If a person edits a page with no citation, it will be removed by editors. If it’s just blatant vandalism, it will be removed by bots or the large community who can amend false facts. Additionally, that person’s  IP address will be blocked or banned. Other articles are under “extended confirmed protection,” meaning that users may only edit them if 30 days have passed since the user registered and they have made over 500 edits.

Wikipedia, hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, is essentially funded by its readers’ small donations; the average donation just about 15 dollars. This means that Wikipedia cannot be influenced by advertisements.

How well does Wikipedia hold up though? I knew I had to test this theory to prove a point, so I made an edit to the Wikipedia page, “Vacanti Mouse,” a laboratory mouse who grew a human ear. I went under the alias JohnDoe7328. This page was fitting because it didn’t have Extended Confirmed Protection and was not likely to be vandalized. I replaced “laboratory mouse” with “American singer-songwriter” and waited for a revision.

In less than 40 seconds, I received a notification from Wtmitchell (Bill Mitchell), revising my edit. Clearly, I was unhappy with Mr. Mitchell and shortly redid my edit. In less than 15 seconds, my revision was taken down. Not cool, Bill. I was later blocked from editing.

So what does this prove? If unprotected pages with very little attention can be updated by such a large community in less than one minute, almost nobody would be able to touch Wikipedia’s more popularly visited pages.

Wikipedia believes that with constant updating of entries, the encyclopedia will be ultimately perfected. So what do poorly-constructed websites with clickbait titles and plenty of ads hold up in reliability to Wikipedia, a strictly-moderated website that explicitly cites a compilation of sources?

Wikipedia is a tool that should be accessible for students to use as a citation; one that is an acceptable and reliable source rather than one used as a starting point. We live in a period of time where information is being constantly updated and published onto the Internet. Why not take full advantage of something that brings the brilliance of many onto a single website?

Your friendly Wikipedian, JohnDoe7328.