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July 03, 2007, 03:48 PM ET
The Young Minds Behind Wikipedia
Professors can — and will — debate whether Wikipedia is waging war against expertise or simply giving folks outside of academe a chance to speak. But one thing about the site is inarguable: It has emboldened a generation of surprisingly young encyclopedists.
The New York Times profiles a few such scribes, including Matthew Gruen, a Wikipedia writer who earned rave reviews for shaping an article about the arrest of six men who allegedly planned to attack Fort Dix. Mr. Gruen, who is known to other Wikipedians as “Gracenotes,” is a dedicated and scrupulous contributor to the Web site. And he is 16 years old: [H]e will often, after his homework is done and his church responsibilities are fulfilled, spend six hours or more a night cleaning up errors in the encyclopedia. An amateur programmer and calculus buff who lives near Poughkeepsie, N.Y., he became seriously involved with Wikipedia just about eight months ago, after his parents ordered him out of a different online community of which they did not approve.
Critics of Wikipedia may take Gracenote’s age as evidence that the site’s contributors are not to be trusted. But professors would do well to harness the passion that students like Mr. Gruen have for the encyclopedia. —Brock Read
Categories: Teaching, Student-Life
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