The Wikipedia and Education

The raison d'etre of the Wikipedia, an Internet based Encyclopedia, is the democratisation, pragmatisation of knowledge through circumventing the hierarchical nature of knowledge in the traditional sense. However, it is critically debatable whether the self-claimed Encyclopedia could be termed as one. True, it does provide a vast spectrum of information about topics under the sun, however a close scrutiny does question whether it subscribes to the provision of Encyclopediac knowledge or simply dubitable factual information. The few positive characteristics give a glimpse and challenge the notions of an Encyclopedia in a traditional sense. Its self-claims are that it is a non-profit organisation and democratic. It supposedly considers the views of H.G. Wells and Frederick Hayek who promoted the notion of social principle of knowledge through 'world brain' which presupposes collaboration and an ahierarchical basis to knowledge against the classical Descartian concept which informed the European Enlightenment. In reality, the democratisation comes only at the stake of rigorous scholarship. The wikipedia begins with not too benign a beginning. It is afflicted by the problem of gender and anonymity. Only a mere 2% of its registered users contribute towards the wikipedia, 80 % of its users are male, operating along the post modernist principles, it sacrifices the notion of Truth and beset with the problem of research and factuality. It rings with the post modern strain that "Truth could be anybody's". Its merit for Educational use ought to be examined thoroughly but its various links and reference citations could be useful. The wikipedia is not in the classical sense an encyclopedia but a few notches underneath it.