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This essay presents arguments to show that the Wikipedia is succeeding in the goal of becoming a reputable and reliable encyclopedia. A sister essay, Wikipedia is failing, presents arguments from another point of view that we respond to here. In some cases, we also argue a more conservative point of view that it is too early to decide failure or success.
After rebutting the arguments, we place the indications of Wikipedia's success and failure in the larger context of the standard accepted criteria for all encyclopedias: overall size, organization, ease of navigation, breadth of coverage, depth of coverage, timeliness, readability, biases, and reliability.[1][2][3] We evaluate Wikipedia according to these criteria, and give detailed comparisons to a standard encyclopedia, the Encyclopædia Britannica.
All editors are encouraged to add arguments showing that Wikipedia is not failing. The contest is between arguments, not people; we share a common goal of clarifying where Wikipedia works and where it does not. We should instead strive to outdo each other in supporting data, reliable references and clear thinking.
- ^ Kister, KF (1994). Kister's Best Encyclopedias: A Comparative Guide to General and Specialized Encyclopedias (2nd ed.). Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press. ISBN 0-89774-744-5.
- ^ Sader, Marian; Lewis, Amy (1995). Encyclopedias, Atlases, and Dictionaries. New Providence, NJ: R. R. Bowker (A Reed Reference Publishing Company). ISBN 0-8352-3669-2.
- ^ Purchasing an Encyclopedia: 12 Points to Consider (5th ed.). Booklist Publications, American Library Association. 1996. ISBN 0-8389-7823-1.