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For this reason, many teachers and librarians ban students from citing this source, for is it not obvious that a site which allows anyone to edit its articles cannot be remotely reliable? Surely, this “collaborative encyclopedia” is a mess, riddled with errors, bias, and vandalism. Thus, based on reasoning and common sense, many scholars and experts have predicted the downfall of Wikipedia since its beginnings in 2001, yet so far all of them have been wrong[1]. Surprisingly, Wikipedia's wiki nature, or open source collaboration, has helped the site prosper and become increasingly popular. As author of the Wikipedia Revolution, Andrew Lih, put it, “what would surely seem to create chaos has actually produced increasingly respected content which has been evaluated and revised by the thousands of visitors to the site over time”[2]. Still, critics claim Wikipedia is inherently unreliable because its open editing allows factual errors, its wiki nature allows bias and vandalism, and most importantly of all, its authors’ anonymity prevents the site from being even slightly credible.
However, recent rigorous study and research have indicated that Wikipedia is as accurate and reliable as many of the peer reviewed works by top publishing companies; Wikipedia’s policies prevent excess vandalism and allow its information more neutral than many other sources; and online reputation of the editors, along with intrinsic values, can serve as a substitute for author credentials, which are not necessary in encyclopedic work. These factors have allowed Wikipedia to be one of the most reliable sources of information on the internet and propelled it into its current state of popularity. Thus, instead of prohibiting students from citing Wikipedia, teachers should instruct students how to cite Wikipedia effectively.