Is History in Wikipedia Any Good?

The Center for History and New Media has made available a June 2006 article titled “Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past” (full citation below). In it, author Roy Rosenzweig asks if the historical writing in Wikipedia is any good. He continues, wondering what are the implications of Wikipedia for scholarship and teaching and, particularly, for researchers who teach the past to general public.

Rosenzeig then moves looks at the strengths and weaknesses of historical articles. His conclusion:

As in the old tale of the blind men and the elephant, your assessment of Wikipedia as history depends a great deal on what part you touch. It also depends … on how you define “history” … professional historians need not fear that Wikipedians will quickly put them out of business. Good historical writing requires not just factual accuracy but also a command of the scholarly literature, persuasive analysis and interpretations, and clear and engaging prose. By those measures, American National Biography Online easily outdistances Wikipedia.

Rosenzeig turns to questions of open-source writing and the production of history towards the end of the essay. He concludes the paper this way:

Wikipedia and Linux show that there are alternative models to producing encyclopedias and software than the hierarchical, commercial model represented by Bill Gates and Microsoft. And whether or not historians consider alternative models for producing their own work, they should pay closer attention to their erstwhile competitors at Wikipedia than Microsoft devoted to worrying about an obscure free and open-source operating system called Linux.

There is a lot more in the essay itself.

For a lighter note on Wikipedia, the Globe and Mail has a piece on the Canadian who has edited about 80,000 Wikipedia articles.

(Citation: Rosenzwieg, Roy. The Journal of American History Volume 93, Number 1 (June, 2006): 117-46.)

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