Wikipedia should go - young children think it is a research tool!

As long as they're also shown that primary sources are equally unreliable, if not even moreso. At least Wikipedia includes opportunities for peer review, and any controversial entry can be marked as such and debated. I can't think of any other resource -- with the sole exception of science journals -- that has everything subject to peer review and labeling articles as disputed, incomplete, etc. The only problem with Wikipedia is that articles are posted instantly, and there is more content creation happening than the peer review can keep up with.

Anyway, ultimately this opinion artcle from the Guardian is really just part of the War On Wikipedia. The exclusive, elitist, and company-owned sources -- ranging from big journalism corporations like the Associated Press, the Guardian and the New York Times to publishing houses such as the World Book Company -- have much to lose because of crowd-powered media like NowPublic and Wikipedia. It is because of the control and ownership of information that big corporations are able to make money. If you want knowledge that they have, you have to pay them for it. Buy a newspaper. Buy a set of encyclopedias. They control the flow of information, and you can't have any of it unless you give them money. They gain their wealth by limiting your access to knowledge.

Wikipedia, NowPublic and other crowd-powered media are a big threat to that control of knowledge. Suddenly people can get news and information from places that aren't owned by a huge corporation and don't withhold the knowledge until you open your wallet for them.

Equally dangerous to that big-money corporate power structure, Wikipedia and NowPublic have far more writers, researchers and reporters than any of those companies. As a result, Wikipedia has more and better information on a much broader range of topics than any encylopedia can ever hope to match. You can find deep -- even exhaustive -- information about everything from trigonometry to Dragon Ball Z on Wikipedia. I dare you to compare Wikipedia's articles side-by-side with those of World Book. And likewise, NowPublic has more information on news topics from the attorney firings to St. Patrick's Day parades than the corporate journalism entities can ever have.

That threatens the control over both the flow of information AND the research/reporting/creation of information. Wikipedia and NowPublic have a bigger staff, nearly all of whom work for free, and all of the content is available to anybody who wants it, at no charge. And if somebody finds fault with an article on Wikipedia they can dispute it, or if they find fault with a report on NowPublic then they can research and write their own article.

Try that with World Book or the New York Times!

good stuff:

I sort of agree with not.saussure, that rather than "getting rid of it" or not allowing kids to use it, teach them that it is what it is, and that they should be critical thinkers when confronting the information provided there. Thanks for sparking the debate, Boston!

I agree with Kaitlin. Rather than getting rid of it, teach the kids the proper use.

Wikipedia as a primary source of information for research works by students should be discouraged. We still have a very long way to go before finally seeing this online collaborative encyclopedia clean up few kinks.  There are lots of issues to be addressed such as the independence and how editors of the website represent themselves. There must also be some safety nets to be placed so information are properly referenced or are authentic and accurate.

In fact, one of the biggest challenges here is its collaborative, user-generated nature because it lets people, no matter background he or she has, to edit, delete and modify contents.  This  liberty or freedom is sometimes abused and become subject for ploys that may negate or not a particular entry such as a person's biography.