Exploration Station: Wikipedia

Wikipedia's take on our example fake news is here:

About www.Wikipedia.org:

Emphasis:

• Online community sourced encyclopedia

Coverage:

• The known world
• Guidelines include
  • must be "encyclopedic" in nature - not just a word definition
  • "notable" - something covered in mainstream media or scholarship sources independent of subject
  • established knowledge - no original research

Methodology:

• "Five Pillars":  Wikipedia is
  • Wikipedia is an encyclopedia
  • Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view
  • Wikipedia free content
  • Editors should treat each other with respect
  • Wikipedia has no firm rules
• Anyone can sign up to be an editor to create or edit content
  • Guidelines
• An editor can move on to different administration levels with different responsibilities (arbitration, special editing rights)
• No one "owns" an article; anyone can edit or suggest changes
• Articles can be flagged as not meeting standards but is up to community to change them
• Events in the news and hot topics are edited in a very timely fashion
• Articles of less interest may be untouched for years
• Mantra is "verifiable, not truth"

Personnel:

• Volunteers - About 70,000 editors!
• Can be anyone
• Areas may have experts who volunteer to keep an area updated
• Lots of documentation to
• Some paid administrative personnel

Independent (Funding, bias?):

• No ads
• Wikimedia Foundation is funding arm
• Mostly by donations; also some institutional grants and gifts
• Donation policy based on keeping clear of influence and includes right to refuse

PROS:

• Used by everyone on earth
• Interface familiar
• Intense commitment to accuracy, based on mission
• Updated very quickly
• Content available in many countries in many languages (content may vary, however)
• Can view discussion regarding entries, which may shed light on dissenting opinions
• Facts such as deaths, events updated rapidly; obvious hacks on timely entries caught quickly; hot topics seem to be updated/monitored regularly
• Great for initial overview of topic

CONS:                                                                

• Article should only be starting point
• Articles not signed
• No guarantee of expertise
• Only uses secondary sources – may point to a fact checker site to prove a point
• It is not a news site, nor does it employ journalists; not necessarily written by experts
• Inconsistent coverage
• Quality varies greatly
• Some content flagged as biased; identified, but still on the site
• Debunking myths not its primary focus
• Should not be your definitive source
• Communal nature of editing means article evolves over time; lesser sought after articles may be of poor quality for long periods of time
• Verifiable, not truth