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Wikipedia – Should We Care?

If Mediate.com is #1 for ‘mediation’ on Google, guess who is #2?

Well, take a look here.

Wikipedia (wikiˈpi¢°di.ə) is the second most visited site from Google searches and, as you would expect from the Internet’s largest reference site, the collaborative online encyclopedia includes an extensive entry for mediation.

And other than being a little Australian centric, it’s there or there abouts, but has room for a lot more detail – and in particular some good links to mediation web resources.

But that’s not my point.

With rare exceptions, Wikipedia’s articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet and with that ability we are beginning to see corporate fingerprints in Wikipedia edits.

Yep, from the CIA to the Vatican, it looks like special interests are battling out the “facts” on Wikipedia.

So, if Wikipedia is becoming the new battleground for our hearts and minds; if people really are seeing it as the source of all wisdom, the question arises whether the mediation community should be paying more attention to who is writing up Wikipedia’s mediation pages?

So who is it? Does anyone know?

With this week’s release of WikiScanner that can find where Wikipedia edits originate from it should be entirely possible to find out.

But I thought I would ask first.

                        author

Geoff Sharp

Geoff Sharp is a Commercial Mediator from Wellington, New Zealand. Geoff works in the Asia Pacific region, including New Zealand, Malaysia, Thailand and Pacific Islands. He is a mediator resolving business problems. He is a fellow of the International Academy of Mediators and mediates complex and hotly debated litigation covering… MORE >

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