Wikiproblems

The week we were asked to look at Wikipedia pages that contain historical content and discuss what we see.  For this assignment I really wanted to look at pages about large topics that often spawn heated debates.  Therefore I chose The Civil War, The Holocaust, and just to spice it up...Marxism. (fun).  All of the topics are commonly debated over because of people's different views, whether it political, religious, or social.  Often the readers of Wikipedia misunderstand its purpose, which is to state the facts without any biases, and for wider topics to have an overview explaining the particular topic without much detail.  For these topics, this is a very difficult task for the contributing writers because there are so many causes, results, and interpretations of these topics.

The first sentence of the Civil War page states that it is sometimes called the "War Between the States", which was changed from the original which said that it was sometimes referred to "The War of Northern Aggression".  That in itself can cause biases which lean toward sympathy toward Southern States with the North being the "bad guy".  For someone who is just learning about the Civil War, details like this can help form opinions toward one side or the other, which may not always be correct.  Although it is hard for opinions of the writer to sneak in, it is their job to try their best to be unbiased, and unfortunately the nature of Wikipedia lets anyone change and write about a specific topic.

The next site was the Holocaust, which is a much more sensitive topic.  One of the main criticisms I noticed on the discussion page was whether to use the term Nazi-Germany or just Germany.  In my own opinion it should remain Nazi-Germany simply because it was the Nazi-run government who implemented the mass murders that occurred at the time, not necessarily the Germany nation as a whole.  However, with Wikipedia, there is not room for such discussions and interpretations because it is an "encyclopedia", not a monograph or peer reviewed book or journal.  Large topics such as the Holocaust and the Civil War cannot be researched in depths through outlets like Wikipedia because that is simply not its purpose.

I saved the best for last which was the Wikipedia page on Marxism.  I have to say that the discussion page on this topic had the most heated and controversial debates over what the page should include or not include.  I had to giggle when I saw that even before you scroll to the discussions, there were all kinds of disclaimers about the page such as "Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated", "Marxism is part of the selected content on the Communism Portal, which means that it was selected as a high quality Communism-related article", This is a controversial historical topic that may be disputed.", and "This is not a forum for general discussion of Marxism. Any such comments may be removed or refactored."  These disclaimers must be posted on a page such as this because of the highly heated debates that it causes.  The term Marxism or Marxists has been used too liberally throughout recent U.S. politics that the true definition is often times disputed by someone who thinks it may be something else.  Also, if that person chooses they can change and edit the entry to their own liking.  However, Wikipedia does police these changes rather thoroughly, there may be people who view the page before it is corrected.
In conclusion, Wikipedia is great if you are leisurely wanting to learn the ins and outs of a particular topic, but for academic use and research, Wikipedia is no where near what needs to be studied.  Often times the citations are not even from credible sources, so to me, it should not even been considered as any type or research aid.