World and wikipedia Part II

The second half Dalby's book focuses on why we as internet users, love wikipedia. It seems to me that the reason we love it is the same reason that it is unreliable: The fact that anyone can edit any entry. Once an article is saved, it is impossible to do a background check on the credibility of the user. We are hidden behind our monitors and keyboards, so as long as the reuputation of wikipedia remains credible, that will cement the credibility of all their articles online, unless they are obviously flawed. While Wikipedia may have some inconsistincies within it about scholarly topics, such as the structure of an atom, I think Wikipedia has a lot going for it in terms of its culture referincing. For instance, no real encyclopedia will comment about Lonelygirl's fake video blogs and the whole controversy that ensued there. But wikipedia will, and for the most part it will be accurate. It goes beyond the culture that exists in our everyday life and physical history. We have created a virtual culture and the timeline of that will be recorded online, so to rid of wikipedia is to tear out a giant chunk of our online culture. Dalby also speaks about why we don't trust wikipedia. Sometimes what occurs is Wikipedia will reference itself in the footnotes, a kind of circular reference. However it is still a giant in terms of internet traffic. I believe this is largely due to the fact that google posts Wikipedia's articles in the top 5, if not the first or second, of its search results. Internet users trust Google's algorithm enough to insist that the top search results are the best, rendering Wikipedia a great source of information.