Wikipedia (n):

I would like to start this blog entry with a question taken directly from a recent CNN news article:

Do you take wikipedia seriously, or with a grain of salt?

For the most part, I like Wikipedia. It certainly comes in handy when I need a quick reference, although I leave in-depth searches to other more reliable source material.

At the same time, I despise the poor grammer and sometimes jumbled entries, and have at times wondered if I should take a weekend and correct ignorant spelling or sentence fractions. But hey, I'm neither OCD nor QUITE that big of a nerd, so I let it be.

But with debates on the rise, what IS the future of Wikipedia? I find it interesting that of course its largest opponent happens to be the president of another encyclopedia. Reminds me of political mud-slinging.

At the same time, I see the corruption of big-business publicizing their own entries. Yet, Wikipedia seems to monitor the site frequently enough that I'm sure constant changes get noticed. Even I've tried to add a thing or two to my sororities Wikipedia page, and although I know beyond a shadow of a doubt certain things about my sisterhood, Wikipedia has no qualms not accepting my changes. Perhaps Wikipedia should worry more about lawsuits in the future.

But still, I believe the biggest lesson taken from this newest Wiki scandal is simply the same as what was taught us by our eighth grade English teachers: you can't trust everything on the internet. Especially if the entry doesn't even have correct spelling.