So what’s up with Wikipedia? Is it a great source of information on everything, or is it a horrible source of information about nothing valuable? Unfortunately, Wikipedia has gained a widespread label of ‘untrustworthy’, generally spread by those in authority positions. Why is that? The answer is impossible to know for certain but there are certain inferences we can make. Authority, especially authority being paid to provide information, is threatened by information being given away for free. If a new store opened and decided to start giving away all their merchandise (because the merchandise was given to them for free) Target would probably be a bit scared for their future. The same applies to academia. Although the information might not be quite as good sometimes, it has the huge benefit of being free and requiring the user to sit through no long and drawn out lectures. If you could get a nice, well-rounded, new car for $25,000 or a slightly used and dinged one that runs like a champion for free, which would you choose?

The only people who favor the status quo are those who benefit from the status quo. That is to say that those in power don’t want the power structure to change. Let’s flip the scene and pretend that the givers of information today (academia) are the government. They are the man. All of a sudden it doesn’t seem as wise to want all the information to come from them, huh? All of a sudden it seems wise that someone, even someone small, should provide a resource that can give out a second opinion and a different voice. Wikipedia provides that second voice even though academia is still screaming at the top of its lungs that it is the only way to (valid) knowledge.

Web 2.0… is the most convoluted mess I’ve ever heard of. Trying to understand it is more difficult than sorting through Miss USA Competition’s South Carolina answer. (Don’t know what I’m referring to? See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj3iNxZ8Dww ) The term Web 2.0 is so used and abused that it doesn’t even know what it is anymore, much less should we attempt to understand it. Toss it out and come up with a term that means something already!