Love Thy Wiki

There's an apprehension for wikipedia I don't understand. Teachers especially seem to detest the wiki creation—"wiki" meaning that it's a collaborative effort by people online. Yeah, I didn't know either. I've always been told, "Don't use that as a source!" "That is not a source," or "Esto no es un fuente." Luckily I never listened to my teachers, and I never understood Spanish despite the four years I took, so I never did as I was told.

Wikipedia is like the bastard child of a high society family. Ya know, like the kid that grew up in the Bronx with his mom who shacked up with Donald Trump that one night: He's no Ivanka, but he's still getting child support.

For some reason no one will look at wikipedia like the living document it is. Does anyone scoff at the Constitution? It's a living document subject to change, it can be updated when its parts become outdated, and when enough people disagree with it, it's subject to a red pen.

I understand wikipedia is no Constitution, but at its essence it's similar. Say you're looking up the history of the dildo and you know for a fact that the "rabbit" was designed by so-and-so but someone thought it would be funny to say it was invented by Jack Hoff, the site has editors constantly going through entries to make sure that it stays as honest as possible. The public too can make edits in entries. The dildo's history is secure!

On top of it all, when a person writes something on wikipedia, you MUST cite your source which makes each entry more like a term paper than a craft project.

I'm not asking everyone to quit hating on wikipedia, I'm no Sally Struthers, I just hope to show everyone that this great living document online is something to be appreciated not feared.

If you haven't taken the time to get to know wikipedia and read about it's policies on mistakes, take the time to read about it. All links in this blog were brought to you by wikipedia and will take you there.