"Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth"

I suppose we're still discussing wikipedia. Just when you thought the worst was over. Seriously, though, it really is still necessary to keep this on our radar screen. -Gary

"Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth: Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy."

By Simson L. Garfinkel

With little notice from the outside world, the community-written encyclopedia Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word "truth."

Why should we care? Because ­Wikipedia's articles are the first- or second-ranked results for most Internet searches. Type "iron" into Google, and Wikipedia's article on the element is the top-ranked result; likewise, its article on the Iron Cross is first when the search words are "iron cross." Google's search algorithms rank a story in part by how many times it has been linked to; people are linking to Wikipedia articles a lot. [more]