Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, is without a doubt accepted as one of the most amazing sources of information on the internet. This is where people turn to for any information they need. The English language version was brought out in 2001 and has experienced great popularity since then.

But over the years, Wikipedia has had its share of controversies. There have been academics who deemed suspect some entries, as it is an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone. Many feel that just as too many cooks spoil the broth, too many contributors/editors can also confuse the information.

Wikipedia has fought many battles and the latest one is from Britain’s famous art gallery’s website, “National Portrait Gallery (NPG).” They have threatened to take legal action as they claim that images from their website have been uploaded to Wikipedia. In response to this, the online encyclopedia has accused the National Portrait Gallery of betraying its public service mission.

An image of the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I looks on amusingly from the art gallery and now also the Wikipedia pages, as the two adversaries battle for rights hundreds of years after she was painted. The fact is that 3,300 high-resolution images from the gallery have been uploaded to Wikipedia in April, by a Ph.D. student and volunteer from Seattle, Derrick Coetzee, and the gallery is not too happy with that.

The gallery founded in 1856 said it needs to recoup the 1 million pounds cost of digitalization program and threatened legal action. The gallery has ordered a well-known law firm to sue Coetzee unless the pictures are removed. Gallery officials say that although, the portraits are not in copyright, the photographs are and that they spent around £1m to create high resolution images, which therefore require a license fee. They say Wikipedia has not responded to their letters.

Wikipedia on its part is fully supportive of Coetzee and argues that the portraits are under public ownership. Deputy Director of the Wikipedia Foundation that runs the online encyclopedia, Erik Moeller said that museums and other cultural institutions should not pursue extra revenue while limiting public access to their material. He wrote in his blog post, “It is hard to see a plausible argument that excluding public domain content from a free, non-profit encyclopedia serves any public interest whatsoever.”

He also mentioned that two German photographic archives donated 350,000 copyrighted images for use on Wikipedia, and there have been other institutions in the United Kingdom and the US that have looked and understood the benefits of making their material available for the public free of charge. According to another Wikipedia volunteer, the gallery only makes around 10-15,000 pounds each year from Web licensing.

However, the gallery insists that it has been misrepresented and although it does not make much money from Web licensing, its income from reproduction of its images in magazines and books is much more, around 339,000 in the previous year.

Another point of contention is that of copyright laws in different countries. Coetzee is a US citizen where the laws pertaining to images of publicly owned art are different and the gallery opines that since the images are protected under U.K. copyright law, the law of the land rules. This raises interesting questions about how the local law affects websites that are located in other parts of the world.

This news has become a raging topic in cyberspace, leading to a conflict of words between supporters of free information and cultural institutions who wish to protect their limited revenue streams, which include the license fee for reproducing images of their artworks.

Opinions on this issue vary. While some support Wikipedia saying that people have a right to see these images as they are public property already; others insist that the likes of Wikipedia want to take advantage of the new technology and have everything for free, and if somebody takes the effort to produce the best picture possible, then they need to be protected. Since the gallery makes low to medium resolution images available free for people, many feel that it was wrong of Wikipedia to take the high resolution images.

Coetzee is the only one who has not yet commented on what is a repercussion of his deeds. It is left to be seen what route this controversy takes and if Wikipedia is stuck with the label of a thief.

Initially, Wikipedia was just an extension of Nupedia but when Nupedia’s advisory board rejected the idea of a public edited encyclopedia, Wikipedia overtook Nupedia with the quality of content and the number of visitors. In two years time, Nupedia was abandoned and all the content from there incorporated into Wikipedia.

The most unique concept of Wikipedia is that anyone, even under the cover of anonymity can make changes to the content by clicking on the “edit” button, making it a good source of information as it is continually updated with the latest developments. This uniqueness is also what causes the controversies. Many people, including several educational institutions do not take into consideration any references from Wikipedia, as they believe that allowing people to edit the content, makes it an un-authoritative source of information with a huge possibility of vandalized content.

A scientific publication has reported to have done a comparative study of Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia, and the result was that, while Britannica suffered from fact omission, Wikipedia is reported to contain inaccurate information.

Wikipedia, over the years, had to face a lot of flak, including defamation cases because of people claiming that things written about them were untrue. The recent defamation claim was by literary agent Barbara Bauer, who sued Wikipedia because of statements that were written about her that said, “dumbest of the twenty worst” agents and also saying that she had “no documented sales at all.” However, this case was dismissed because according to federal law, Wikipedia Foundation is immune to liability for statements written by the users as it is considered to be free speech content generated by users.

Can anyone write anything they want and get away with it? Since when do people have the right to defame others? Does this mean that sites like Wikipedia and other online communities can continue to use user-generated content without fear of lawsuits? These are the questions being asked by some people.

Although, a page in Wikipedia clearly states that all entries submitted should be neutral, this is not always followed and content that is biased does take its place in this encyclopedia in spite of there being editors.

The discussion at hand is whether it is possible to make this work, more so with political topics that are controversial. An entry for U.S. President, George Bush came to light, where the content was about the time when George Bush entered the Texas Air National Guard.

The sentence in Wikipedia is, “In May 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War, he entered the Texas Air National Guard. He trained in the guard for two years, where he was among the last to learn to fly the F-102, a place not used in Vietnam and due to be retired.”

The question that was asked is whether it is really necessary to mention that he was one of the last.

A comparison was drawn with the Encarta encyclopedia’s version of the same, which said, “He did his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and entered a pilot-training program at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Georgia. He received favorable reports from his superiors, attained the rank of second lieutenant, and was certified to fly the F-102 jet fighter during training missions in the South and along the Gulf Coast.”

The difference with Encarta is that, people can edit the content but with editor approval.

Wikipedia ultimately reacted to this controversy by not allowing people to edit that page, with the statement, “As a result of recent vandalism, or to stop banned editors from editing, editing of this page by new or unregistered users is temporarily disabled.”

Another strong bias about Wikipedia is said to be where atheism is concerned. People say that it failed to show that American atheists give much less to charity when compared to theists. Other articles in Wikipedia try to associate atheism with the progress of science; whereas, it is argued that it is Christianity that is the cause for the development of modern science. A section of people also associate this bias to a co-founder of Wikipedia being an atheist.

Another example that is given is that of Wikipedia censoring “the Wikipedia Review” which is a huge forum that is critical of Wikipedia. This forum was also listed under the spam blacklist in Wikipedia earlier.

Amongst all these controversies and biases, there are many who feel that finding a middle ground and attaining a neutral point of view, for either Wikipedia or other encyclopedias may not be possible when there is no restriction on the editing of content. Even removal of the so-called bias may not be possible, because what is bias for one may not be for others.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a large wiki – hence the name. It is a large system that collects the knowledge of a large population working under the theory that the collective knowledge of enough people will be correct. To help solidify information, it requires references and annotations of entries.

If I were to add an entry in Wikipedia, you can easily come in behind me and edit that entry. You can change it to whatever you want, but in reality you’ll probably just add a few things I left out or change some wording to make it more concise and valid. Over time, hundreds, or maybe thousands, of visitors and editors will make small changes until the Wikipedia entry reflects a common consensus. If everyone agrees the entry is correct, it most likely is.

Wikipedia Problems
There have been a few problems with this system. One is the content wars that go on between editors. Two individuals, or more, can get into a heated debate about the validity of a point and keep changing an entry back and forth until someone above them locks it and puts an end to the debate.

Other problems are webmasters or editors who create entries as blatant advertisements. Still other visitors purposely change text to be misguiding on entries unlikely to be edited quickly by others. Finally, some individuals who are mentioned in Wikipedia have gone in or had their agents go in and make changes to reflect them in a more positive light.

Now the practice has spread beyond celebrities and their egos.

The Edits
The United States government has made changes to Wikipedia. CIA and FBI computers have edited entries on hot topics such as the Iraq War and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Now purists are screeching that the government has not followed the rules of the site by making changes to things like the Iraq death toll or removing aerial photographs of Guantanamo Bay.

Editors are certainly allowed to make changes to entries if they have conflicting interests or can support the changes with factual sources. In this case, however, the government has gone a bit beyond conflicting interests. Many are already skeptical of news on hot topics from the government. This is just more of the same.

Of course, the government is not alone in a few bold edits. Exxon-Mobile changed its entry regarding the Exxon Valdez, and Dell carefully deleted a section from its entry about outsourcing overseas. It appears vanity and public image are not isolated to overexposed celebrities.