Wikipedia This, Wikipedia That!

Wikipedia has been somewhat of an internet research sensation in recent years. The content and subject matter is astounding. Wikipedia markets itself as being the online encyclipedic databse for research facts and writing papers for school. Wikipedia is unique in that anyone can contribute to or take away from each individual entry. The idea is that the articles contain up to date facts and information for any given topic. But with anyone and everyone having the ability to access and change the information just how reliable are the entries? A 2007 article on Wired addresses this very issue. Here's the link: http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker?currentPage=all.

According to the write up, Wikipedia has been altered many times over often by the very people who topics were written about. This may seem to be biased but I remember a scene from a great movie that went like this:

Luke: Obi-Wan.
Luke: Why didn't you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
Obi-Wan: Your father... was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and *became* Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view.
Luke: A certain point of view?
Luke: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. Anakin was a good friend. When I first knew him, your father was already a great pilot. But I was amazed how strongly the Force was with him. I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.

That little bit of wisdom was from Star Wars. I think that with Wikipedia as with all things, we should be careful of taking what we read at face value. When researching something when did we as intellectuals stop verifying our facts from multiple sources? Wikipedia is just a tool. The tools we use are only useful if used in the right way and this holds true for Wikipedia. History is constantly being rewritten, usually by those in power, so caution is always a good idea when using any source for any research. Check The Facts!