As a late 90s kid, we were always told "Wikipedia is not a reliable source" in school as a deterrent for its use in reports. Unfortunately, the fact that tertiary sources have no place in academic papers was lost in the "anyone can edit Wikipedia" and "don't trust everything you read online" dialogs that were common in the early 2000s. However, in an age of social media and misinformation, Wikipedia has ironically but by no accident, become one of the most reliable sources on the internet. I argue that it is the purest creation and epitome of the internet.

Despite lacking the polish of contemporary Web 2.0 competitors and seldom receiving updates, Wikipedia consistently ranks as one of the most popular websites. Wikipedia's success stems from its commitment to its founding principle of being crowd-sourced (both for content and funding). When Sir Tim Berners Lee wrote his proposal for the world wide web, he aimed to solve the problem of accessing information stored on different computers, "Imagine, then, the references in this document all being associated with the network address of the thing to which they referred, so that while reading this document, you could skip to them with a click of the mouse." This vision has beeen internalized and scaled by Wikipedia, maintained by a community of volunteers and largely run democratically according to its "five pillars":

1. it's an encyclopedia
2. it's written from a neutral point of view
3. it's free for anyone to read, edit, and distribute
4. it's editors should treat each others with respect and civility
5. it has no firm rules

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In Homo Sapiens, Yuval Noah Hariri claims what enabled our species to out-survive other species is our capability for large-scale cooperation; David Christian of Big History defines this as "collective learning" - the ability to share, store, and build upon information. Wikipedia not only democratizes access to information, but also maintaining impartiality and accuracy of it.

Wikipedia is supported by the Wikipedia Foundation, a crowd-sourced not-for-profit organization with the mission to bring free educational content to the world. This plays a key role in maintaining Wikipedia's reliability. Unlike private news or social media companies, it does not have incentives tied to page views and avoids any potential conflicts of interests due to ads. This enables freedom to focus on its pillar of neutrality. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, while misinformation raged online, Wikipedia became a source for accurate and real-time information due to its army of volunteer editors. This community-driven approach works because there is a shroud of anonymity where reputation is built on accuracy. The COVID articles were specially edited by WikiProject Medicine, a specialized group with interest in epertise in medicine. One doctor accounts her experience joining:

[I] had to build a reputation for accuracy and responsibility. “You have to know what you are saying,” she said, and even so it can be intimidating. "You’ve got so many people watching you."

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It's not perfect, and there are valid criticisms that Wikipedia's editorship skews in certain ways (male dominated, describes right-wing figures with higher rate of negative connoted words). Still though, I believe this community driven editorial model is the solution to the growing polarization of social media (BlueSky and Truth Social on the left and right, X somewhere in between), where information is increasingly being weaponized.

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And now, an Ode to Wikipedia

O vast mosaic of knowledge,
You rise—unfenced, unowned—
A beacon in the digital dusk,
Where wisdom once was hoarded,
Now freely sown.

You thrive not on the fickle tides
Of clicks or fleeting trends,
But on the quiet, steady gifts
Of those who cherish truth—
A million hands, unseen,
Crowdsourcing hope,
Shielding you from commerce’s call.

No gilded gate, no paywalled keep,
But open doors for all who seek:
A student’s midnight question,
A curious mind’s delight,
A world’s collective memory
Made whole by many voices.

Here, the edit is an act of faith—
A patch on the quilt, a line in the song—
Where disagreement shapes the edges,
And consensus finds its form.
Diverse as the world you mirror,
You gather contradiction,
And from it, clarity.

O Wikipedia,
Archive of our striving,
Democrat of the intellect,
You prove that knowledge grows
When shared, not sold—
And that truth, like light,
Belongs to all.