Wikipedia’s Success and the Rise of the Amateur-Expert

Wikipedia’s Success and the Rise of the Amateur-Expert

Christopher Sweet
ISBN13: 9781466621787|ISBN10: 1466621788|EISBN13: 9781466621794
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-2178-7.ch002
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MLA

Sweet, Christopher. "Wikipedia’s Success and the Rise of the Amateur-Expert." Social Software and the Evolution of User Expertise: Future Trends in Knowledge Creation and Dissemination, edited by Tatjana Takševa, IGI Global, 2013, pp. 13-36. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-2178-7.ch002

APA

Sweet, C. (2013). Wikipedia’s Success and the Rise of the Amateur-Expert. In T. Takševa (Ed.), Social Software and the Evolution of User Expertise: Future Trends in Knowledge Creation and Dissemination (pp. 13-36). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-2178-7.ch002

Chicago

Sweet, Christopher. "Wikipedia’s Success and the Rise of the Amateur-Expert." In Social Software and the Evolution of User Expertise: Future Trends in Knowledge Creation and Dissemination, edited by Tatjana Takševa, 13-36. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2013. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-4666-2178-7.ch002

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Abstract

The Free Online Encyclopedia, as Wikipedia calls itself, is a radical departure from traditional encyclopedias and traditional methods of knowledge creation. This chapter is an examination of how a community of amateurs on Wikipedia has challenged notions of expertise in the 21st century. It does so by first looking at the roots of Wikipedia in a phenomenon known as the “wisdom of the crowds” and in the open source software movement. The reliability of Wikipedia is examined as are the claims made by major critics of the project. Throughout, epistemological questions raised by Wikipedia are addressed.

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