A few weeks ago, I mentioned a new Wikipedia-based history assignment I was trying out. Well, I did it in this term's Western Civilization I, to 1650 and the results are in. It was a success!

I asked students to choose a Wikipedia article dealing with some controverial subject within the scope of the class and describe not the article, but the discussion behind the article.

The assignment was a scathing indictment of Wikipedia. While some of it can no-doubt be attributed to students writing what they think I want to hear, and not all students understood what the assignment was about, the majority did a good job with it. The students were asked to look at the discussions behind the articles and discovered - a lot of hot air. Even I was surprised how shallow, source-less, devoid of scholarly discussion, and downright petty much of the discussion of historical issues was. Students found anonymous authors engaged in name-calling, bickering over details without citing sources, long discussions of form with little regard to the actual facts of the subject at hand and religious grandstanding - in short, a lot of hollow discourse. Not one student gave a positive evaluation of his or her subject article discussion. The best evaluation was neutral.

It confirmed my worse fears about the Wikipedia project. Accumulation of knowledge is built around identifiable people (who can be held responsible for their claims) and verifiable (and hence ultimately falsifiable) claims. Wikipedia allows too much discourse devoid of either to be considered reliable for anything beyond the most trite factoids and - as always - the often extremely useful lists of links under each article.