Wikipedia's greatest strengths, weaknesses, and differences arise because it is open to anyone. According to editorial guidelines and policies, it has a large contributor base, and its articles are written by consensus.

• Wikipedia is open to a large contributor base, drawing many editors from diverse backgrounds. This allows Wikipedia to reduce regional and cultural bias found in many publications significantly and makes it very difficult for any person or group to censor and impose bias. A large, diverse editor base also provides access and breadth on subject matter otherwise inaccessible or poorly documented. Many editors contributing at any moment can produce encyclopedic articles and resources covering newsworthy events within hours or days of their occurrence. Like any publication, Wikipedia may reflect the cultural, age, socio-economic, and other biases of its contributors. There is no systematic process to make sure "obviously important" topics are written about, so Wikipedia may suffer unexpected oversights and omissions. While anyone may alter most articles, in practice, editing will be performed by a certain demographic (younger rather than older, male rather than female, literate, rich enough to afford a computer, et cetera) and may, therefore, show some bias. Some topics may not be covered well, others in great depth.

• Allowing anyone to edit Wikipedia makes it easily vandalized and susceptible to unverified information, which requires removal. See Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Wikipedia is more subject to subtle viewpoint promotion than a typical reference work. However, a bias that would be unchallenged in a traditional reference work is likely to be eventually challenged or considered on Wikipedia. While Wikipedia articles generally attain a good standard after editing, it is important to note that fledgling articles and those monitored less well may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information. Wikipedia's radical openness also means any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state, such as in the middle of a large edit or a controversial rewrite. Many contributors do not yet comply fully with key policies or may add information without citable sources. Wikipedia's open approach tremendously increases the chances that any particular factual error or misleading statement will be relatively promptly corrected. Numerous editors at any given time are monitoring recent changes and edit articles on their watchlists.

• Wikipedia is written by open and transparent consensus—an approach with its pros and cons. Censorship or imposing "official" points of view is complicated and usually fails after a time. Eventually, all notable views become fairly described for most articles, and a neutral point of view reached. In reality, the process of reaching consensus may be long and drawn-out, with articles fluid or changeable for a long time while they find the "neutral approach" all sides can agree on. Reaching neutrality is occasionally made harder by extreme-viewpoint contributors. Wikipedia operates a full editorial dispute resolution process that allows time for discussion and resolution in-depth. Still, it also permits disagreements to last for months before poor-quality or biased edits are removed. A common conclusion is that Wikipedia is a valuable resource and provides a good reference point on its subjects.

• That said, articles and subject areas sometimes suffer from significant omissions, and while misinformation and vandalism are usually corrected quickly, this does not always happen. (See for example this incident in which a person inserted a fake biography linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations and Soviet Russia as a joke on a co-worker which went undetected for four months, saying afterward he "didn't know Wikipedia was used as a serious reference tool.")

• Wikipedia is written largely by amateurs. Those with expert credentials are given no additional weight. Wikipedia is also not subject to any peer review for scientific, medical, or engineering articles. One advantage of having amateurs write in Wikipedia is that they have more free time on their hands to make rapid changes in response to current events. The wider the general public interest in a topic, the more likely it is to attract contributions from non-specialists.

The MediaWiki software that runs Wikipedia retains a history of all edits and changes. Thus information added to Wikipedia never "vanishes" irreversibly. Discussion pages are an important resource on contentious topics. Therefore, serious researchers can often find a wide range of vigorously or thoughtfully advocated viewpoints not present in the consensus article. As with any source, the information should be checked. A 2005 editorial by a BBC technology writer comments that these debates are probably symptomatic of cultural changes that are happening across all sources of information (including search engines and the media) and may lead to "a better sense of how to evaluate information sources." [3]

Wikipedia's greatest strengths, weaknesses, and differences arise because it is open to anyone. According to editorial guidelines and policies, it has a large contributor base, and its articles are written by consensus.

• Wikipedia is open to a large contributor base, drawing many editors from diverse backgrounds. This allows Wikipedia to reduce regional and cultural bias found in many publications significantly and makes it very difficult for any person or group to censor and impose bias. A large, diverse editor base also provides access and breadth on subject matter otherwise inaccessible or poorly documented. Many editors contributing at any moment can produce encyclopedic articles and resources covering newsworthy events within hours or days of their occurrence. Like any publication, Wikipedia may reflect the cultural, age, socio-economic, and other biases of its contributors. There is no systematic process to make sure "obviously important" topics are written about, so Wikipedia may suffer unexpected oversights and omissions. While anyone may alter most articles, in practice, editing will be performed by a certain demographic (younger rather than older, male rather than female, literate, rich enough to afford a computer, et cetera) and may, therefore, show some bias. Some topics may not be covered well, others in great depth.

• Allowing anyone to edit Wikipedia makes it easily vandalized and susceptible to unverified information, which requires removal. See Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Wikipedia is more subject to subtle viewpoint promotion than a typical reference work. However, a bias that would be unchallenged in a traditional reference work is likely to be eventually challenged or considered on Wikipedia. While Wikipedia articles generally attain a good standard after editing, it is important to note that fledgling articles and those monitored less well may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information. Wikipedia's radical openness also means any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state, such as in the middle of a large edit or a controversial rewrite. Many contributors do not yet comply fully with key policies or may add information without citable sources. Wikipedia's open approach tremendously increases the chances that any particular factual error or misleading statement will be relatively promptly corrected. Numerous editors at any given time are monitoring recent changes and edit articles on their watchlists.

• Wikipedia is written by open and transparent consensus—an approach with its pros and cons. Censorship or imposing "official" points of view is complicated and usually fails after a time. Eventually, all notable views become fairly described for most articles, and a neutral point of view reached. In reality, the process of reaching consensus may be long and drawn-out, with articles fluid or changeable for a long time while they find the "neutral approach" all sides can agree on. Reaching neutrality is occasionally made harder by extreme-viewpoint contributors. Wikipedia operates a full editorial dispute resolution process that allows time for discussion and resolution in-depth. Still, it also permits disagreements to last for months before poor-quality or biased edits are removed. A common conclusion is that Wikipedia is a valuable resource and provides a good reference point on its subjects.

• That said, articles and subject areas sometimes suffer from significant omissions, and while misinformation and vandalism are usually corrected quickly, this does not always happen. (See for example this incident in which a person inserted a fake biography linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations and Soviet Russia as a joke on a co-worker which went undetected for four months, saying afterward he "didn't know Wikipedia was used as a serious reference tool.")

• Wikipedia is written largely by amateurs. Those with expert credentials are given no additional weight. Wikipedia is also not subject to any peer review for scientific, medical, or engineering articles. One advantage of having amateurs write in Wikipedia is that they have more free time on their hands to make rapid changes in response to current events. The wider the general public interest in a topic, the more likely it is to attract contributions from non-specialists.

The MediaWiki software that runs Wikipedia retains a history of all edits and changes. Thus information added to Wikipedia never "vanishes" irreversibly. Discussion pages are an important resource on contentious topics. Therefore, serious researchers can often find a wide range of vigorously or thoughtfully advocated viewpoints not present in the consensus article. As with any source, the information should be checked. A 2005 editorial by a BBC technology writer comments that these debates are probably symptomatic of cultural changes that are happening across all sources of information (including search engines and the media) and may lead to "a better sense of how to evaluate information sources." [3]