Andrew Dalby's The World and Wikipedia, pages 114-225

Andrew Dalby continues to unveil to the reader just why Wikipedia is so appealing to the public, and also the reasons to which it cannot be used as a proper academic encyclopedia. In the beginning of the latter part of the book, Dalby explores the reasons unto why we (the people, as stated by co-founder Jimmy Wales and later reemphasized by the author) love Wikipedia so much; "We love it because it is a virtual nation, or rather a virtual world. We, the people of this virtual world, can be as shy and anonymous as we like, and yet our work, good and bad, is listed and others can explore it"  (Dalby 120). Dalby's assertion that Wikipedia exists as a virtual world further illustrates the direction in which society is headed in the technological age. I think that the reason why Wikipedia has become so popular is that contributors can remain anonymous, while still providing scholarly work to the global community. The fact that contributors, if desired, can remain anonymous is a huge factor both to why so many people frequent the site, and also to why internet games and sites remain and are growing increasignly popular. This is for one basic fact; contributors to sites such as Wikipedia can publish work to a much larger community than they could if they were revising and creating articles in a printed encyclopedia, and probably more fundamentally important, these people can contribute without their identity being known by anyone as they so choose, a distinction that could not be made outside of the "virtual" world. Aside from the appealing aspect of remaining hidden yet probably contributing to a much larger network (more people frequent Wikipedia than any individual encyclopedia (Dalby 9), the contributors to the site often come in contact with each other, an inevitable trait of Wikipedia itself. This sort of networking is beneficial because contributors are able to acquire peers that would otherwise be impossible if the internet, and the encyclopedia itself, did not exist.


However, there are still some concerns surrounding the user ship of the site. With any contribution by non-professionals, there is bound to be at least some degree of bias within the articles (Dalby 157). Dalby claims that the, "articles, which are supposed to be definitive and stable, are in reality endlessly mutable; an added detail may very soon disappear again, and article histories are seldom visited" (Dalby 164). In other words, contributors that have a hidden agenda in editing articles for political purposes ultimately is detrimental to the survival of these articles on an unbiased, definitive level. The publication of certain articles revolving around political figures are bound to stir controversy, because the analysis of political events are without a doubt opinionated, and although the articles are supposed to remain neutral and present the facts, a certain level of bias always seems to arise in the publication of these types of articles.