The series, “Creating and Consuming Culture in the Digital Age,” concluded Wednesday with the event, “A Conversation with Jimmy Wales,” which featured the co-founder of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is inescapable in the digital age, said English professor Richard Fine at Monday night’s roundtable discussion on the Wikipedia phenomenon.
“We thought it would be a great idea to hear about Wikipedia from the horse’s mouth,” Fine said.
Wednesday night, almost every hand in the room raised when Wales asked how many audience members were familiar with Wikipedia. Half the hands in the room remained up when he asked how many people had edited a Wikipedia article.
Wales said the open source encyclopedia was based on the principles of free access. People have the freedom to copy, modify and distribute existing work, commercially or non-commercially, he said.
“When talking about free software, we are talking about free as in speech, not as in beer,” Wales said.
Wales’ goal for the Wiki project is to have 250,000 articles in 347 languages within 15 to 20 years. Wales focused on the newest addition to the project, Wikia, and the development of WikiSearch, an online search engine.
Wales described Wikia as an extension of the Wikipedia that is modeled for the research community, comparing the expansion as the difference between a volume of an encyclopedia and an entire library.
Many colleges are debating Wikipedia’s legitimacy as a source. Wales likened his creation to an encyclopedia, which he said should not be used as a primary source in research.
“This is not the kind of thing to be cited in an academic paper,” Wales said, adding that students should double-check and verify their sources.
A study group found the Encyclopedia Britannica contained an average of three errors, whereas Wikipedia contained an average of four errors, Wales said.
Any errors in Wikipedia articles, however, can be corrected in a matter of minutes. Articles can also be edited to show both sides of an issue. For entries to be widely accepted, Wales said, they have to be accurate.
Wiki, which comes from a Hawaiian word meaning “quick,” is a culture of creativity not based on market exchange but intellectual exchange, Wales said.
Marcel Cornis-Pope, director of Ph.D programs in the English department, said he often uses Wikipedia as a resource because the information is adaptable and readily available.
Most of the major encyclopedia information is static, said Cornis-Pope, whose research centers on media art and text.
Some members, like freshman economics major Chris Horohoe, go beyond using Wikipedia for research and become active participants and editors.
“Getting into the (Wikipedia) community can be hard,” Horohoe said. “But it’s surprisingly addictive.”