Wikipedia

Stacy Schiff, the author of the article "Know it All" from The New Yorker, critiques the website Wikipedia and talks about its consequences in the realm of information. Part of her article deals with the notion of internet versus authority and knowledge versus authority. For both cases, authority is supposedly "those who know what they are talking about." Internet versus authority, I believe, is essentially the fact that people with the actual credentials to post things on wikipedia as fact are given no advantage what so ever against any and every crackpot "who has ever written an amazon.com review." Knowledge versus authority is the notion that a generally well read person can state facts just as well as a person with proper academic credentials. Wikipedia allows anyone and everyone to add to its content whether they know anything or not. All edits and additions to the content are screened for accuracy and legitimacy by thousands of admins and sometimes good citizens.