Wikipedia! not as bad as professionals deem it to be ;)
In response to my project on one of the cold wars: The Korean War, I did an analysis on Wikipedia and it’s biases. After having done some research on the timeline as well as study the way different textbooks educate their people, Wikipedia was the way to go.
Not recommended?
In our school districts these days, most teachers recommend students to study from various sites to ensure the accuracy of the information and to let students search a bit more around the web before relying on the all convenient wikipedia. This works very well as it helps with the student’s research abilities. Something else to look at are books, the most traditional way of finding information. Whether it’s digital books or hardcovers, we all trust it. To give it a rating, it is a good thing. We develop the skills to research but no Wikipedia is not bad, that would not quite be the reason educators do not recommend it.
Overcoming Biases
Not only is Wikipedia not bad, it is also generally non-bias. After looking at wikipedia and comparing the biases, I learned that there are very few in comparison to published books. *reference to previous post* The reason for that may be quite simple. If we look at how books are published, it is written by a few authors for a publisher. There on after, editors take the book and change the odd parts to meet their requirement. From here, they need help, and there comes the government. In order to release it into public settings they need the help of the higher ups and since the ones who are capable of manipulating the contents are very few, it is easier to do. This satisfies the world, the people, and the government. While textbooks take this course perfectly, they aren’t all bad, they state facts and leave some out, some say this would be propaganda, but the knowledge is what counts. Not all books are like this, many are to satisfy different points of view. This leads us to having many books to read through in order to get the big picture. It does us no harm and in reverse benefits us.
If you’re the type of person who doesn’t have much time, then ebooks and the internet is our best choice. Putting ebooks aside, there are many resources online in which we can use, some are made by individuals who wish to share their biases or facts and many are made by organizations. To collect all these together may take time but still, a fast, easy and great choice.
Wikipedia hurrah!
Now comes to the main topic, Wikipedia. You may think that it is an unreliable resource because of how much freedom everyone has in editing it but that is the actual reason as to why it is reliable. Having read through some more popular articles (Korean War), I’ve come to a conclusion that it is quite neutral in its opinions and facts. It states the facts straight out, if it doesn’t, someone will find it and correct it. Some of the examples here (from the Korean War article analyzed) include how a section on Japanese colonialization was included. In most Western textbooks, they avoid giving details on the details of how Korea was colony before the war which would indicate that that US, back then, was trying to take Korea away from another Country which would not be so different from the image they gave the communists. In addition to that, Wikipedia also gives a little part to the casualties during the war. This topic was also something that the rest of the world did not want their people to know. According to the textbook analysis article, only South Korea gave a comment on this. The tragic that went on behind the glory front.
Because it is an open source, anyone can correct it, having millions of people observing its articles each day, it has been proven to be a great editing strategy in comparison to the few professional editors. Why would people edit it? Self motivation and a sense of contribution has to be credited for that. Although I will not get into the psychological factors, the fact is, everyone overlooks wikipedia. Once one bias appears, someone else will take it off with another opinion. With its constant changes, a conclusion can be drawn that it is quite a neutrally opinionated data-base therefore, not a bad thing. Wikipedia, hurrah! 
