The Truth According to Wikipedia (2008)

Directed by

Martijn Kieft, Marijntje Denters, IJsbrand van Veelen

Genre

documentary film

Country

Netherlands

Runtime

48 min

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary looks at Wikipedia and asks whether the site is reliable. It talks to experts and founders about the tug-of-war between amateur editors and professional scholars.

informativebalancedthought-provokingmeasuredanalyticalquestioningearnest

What happens

The Truth According to Wikipedia, also referred to as Wiki's Truth (Dutch: Wiki's Waarheid), is a Dutch documentary about Wikipedia directed by IJsbrand van Veelen. It was screened at The Next Web conference in Amsterdam on 4 April 2008 and broadcast by the Dutch documentary series Backlight (Dutch: Tegenlicht) on Nederland 2 on 7 April 2008. It was subsequently made available through American Public Television. The documentary examines the reliability of Wikipedia, and the dichotomy between the contributions of experts and amateur editors. The documentary includes commentary from Wikipedia co-founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, The Cult of the Amateur author Andrew Keen, O'Reilly Media chief executive officer Tim O'Reilly, and former editor-in-chief of Encyclopædia Britannica Robert McHenry. Keen says that experts should serve as guardians of information during the Web 2.0 phenomenon; this point of view is supported by analysis from Sanger. The Truth According to Wikipedia received a generally positive reception, being described in Film Quarterly as "a sharp and wide-ranging overview of wikipistemology". The Center for Strategic and International Studies gave the documentary a rating of "Good", and called it a useful resource to teach students about appropriate sourcing. Media scholar Mirko Tobias Schäfer described it as an apt debate over truth as represented on the website. New media writer Stephen Downes said the documentary was captivating for its ability to place Wikipedia within the wider context of the Web 3.0 social phenomenon. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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