Philosophers analyze Wikipedia as a knowledge source
The philosophy journal Episteme has published a new issue that focuses on Wikipedia from the perspective of social epistemology. It contains four articles that examine various aspects of Wikipedia as a source of knowledge, including one by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger.
The issue is introduced by University of Arizona philosopher Don Fallis, who recently authored an article in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, "Toward an Epistemology of Wikipedia", arguing that on the whole Wikipedia has good "epistemic consequences" and that its virtues outweigh its flaws. In his introduction on "The Epistemology of Mass Collaboration", Fallis presents some of the epistemological issues raised by Wikipedia's success—chief among them "whether large collaborative projects, such as Wikipedia, can be reliable sources of information."