Wikiality

In a July 2006 episode of the satirical comedy The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert announced the neologism "wikiality", a portmanteau of the words Wiki and reality, for his segment "The Wørd". Colbert defined wikiality as "truth by consensus" (rather than fact), modeled after the approval-by-consensus format of Wikipedia. He ironically praised Wikipedia for following his philosophy of truthiness in which intuition and consensus is a better reflection of reality than fact:

You see, any user can change any entry, and if enough other users agree with them, it becomes true. ... If only the entire body of human knowledge worked this way. And it can, thanks to tonight's word: Wikiality. Now, folks, I'm no fan of reality, and I'm no fan of encyclopedias. I've said it before. Who is Britannica to tell me that George Washington had slaves? If I want to say he didn't, that's my right. And now, thanks to Wikipedia, it's also a fact. We should apply these principles to all information. All we need to do is convince a majority of people that some factoid is true. ... What we're doing is bringing democracy to knowledge.^[2]

According to Stephen Colbert, together "we can all create a reality that we all can agree on; the reality that we just agreed on". During the segment, he joked: "I love Wikipedia... any site that's got a longer entry on truthiness than on Lutherans has its priorities straight." Colbert also used the segment to satirize the more general issue of whether the repetition of statements in the media leads people to believe they are true. The piece was introduced with the tagline "The Revolution Will Not Be Verified", a play on the song title "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" referencing how the mainstream establishment that Wikipedia cites as Reliable Sources will not support significant change, throwing doubt on the idea that Wikipedia is truthful.

Colbert suggested that viewers change the elephant page to state that the number of African elephants has tripled in the last six months.^[3] The suggestion resulted in numerous incorrect changes to Wikipedia articles related to elephants and Africa.^{[lower-alpha 1]} Wikipedia administrators subsequently restricted edits to the pages by anonymous and newly created user accounts.

Colbert went on to type on a laptop facing away from the camera, claiming to be making the edits to the pages himself. Because initial edits to Wikipedia corresponding to these claimed "facts" were made by a user named Stephencolbert, many believe Colbert himself vandalized several Wikipedia pages at the time he was encouraging other users to do the same. The account, whether it was Stephen Colbert himself or someone posing as him, has been blocked from Wikipedia indefinitely.^[4] Wikipedia blocked the account for violating Wikipedia's username policies (which state that using the names of celebrities as login names without permission is inappropriate), not for the vandalism, as believed.

Other instances

In art

Wikipedia Monument in Słubice, Poland

The Wikipedia Monument, located in Słubice, Poland, is a statue designed by Armenian sculptor Mihran Hakobyan honoring Wikipedia contributors. It was unveiled in Frankfurt Square (Plac Frankfurcki) on 22 October 2014 in a ceremony that included representatives from both local Wikimedia chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation.^[5][6]

In webcomics

"Malamanteau", parodying Wikipedia's writing style

References to Wikipedia have been made several times in the webcomic xkcd. A facsimile of a made-up Wikipedia entry for "malamanteau" (a stunt word created by Munroe to poke fun at Wikipedia's writing style) provoked a controversy.^[11][12]

Citations of Wikipedia in culture

• People who are known to have used or recommended Wikipedia as a reference source include comedian Rosie O'Donnell,^[20] and Rutgers University sociology professor Ted Goertzel.^[21][22]
• Various people including Sir Ian McKellen,^[23] Nicolas Cage,^[24] and Marcus Brigstocke^[25] have criticized or commented about Wikipedia's articles about themselves.

In politics

• In June 2011, Wikipedia received attention for attempts by editors to change the "Paul Revere" article to fit Sarah Palin's accounting of events during a campaign bus tour.^[26][27] The New York Times reported that the article "had half a million page views" by June 10, and "after all the attention and arguments, the article is now much longer ... and much better sourced ... than before Palin's remarks."^[28]
• In a speech given on October 28, 2013, to support Ken Cuccinelli for the candidacy of the governor of Virginia, Senator Rand Paul appeared to include close paraphrasing of the Wikipedia entry on the 1997 film Gattaca (version prior to speech) in his comments on eugenics, as noted by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow.^[29][30]
• In April 2015, The Guardian reported claims that Grant Shapps, then-Chairman of the Conservative Party, or a person working under his orders, had edited Wikipedia pages about Shapps and other members of the British Parliament during the runup to the 2015 election, to which Shapps had denied involvement.^[31]
• In October 2018, Jackson A. Cosko, a former staff member for US Senator Maggie Hassan, misused Hassan's computers, after he had been fired, to edit Wikipedia to dox several Congresspersons, including Sen. Mitch McConnell. Cosko pleaded guilty in April 2019.^[32]
• In February 2022, journalists at The Independent found that text from Wikipedia articles on Constantinople and the list of largest cities throughout history had been lifted by civil servants from the UK's Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and placed verbatim into the government's Levelling Up White Paper.^[33]

Wikipedia as comedic material

• Wikipedia is parodied at several websites, including Uncyclopedia^[34][35] and Encyclopedia Dramatica.^[36]
• In May 2006, British chat show host Paul O'Grady received an inquiry from a viewer regarding information given on his Wikipedia page, to which he responded, "Wikipedia? Sounds like a skin disease."
• Comedian Zach Galifianakis claimed to look himself up on Wikipedia in an interview with The Badger Herald,^[37] stating about himself, "...I'm looking at Wikipedia right now. Half Greek, half redneck, around 6-foot-4. And that's about it... The 6-foot-4 thing may be a little bit off. Actually, it's 4-foot-6."

General information source

• Slate magazine compared Wikipedia to the fictional device The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the series of the same name by Douglas Adams. "The parallels between The Hitchhiker's Guide (as found in Adams' original BBC radio series and novels) and Wikipedia are so striking, it's a wonder that the author's rabid fans don't think he invented time travel. Since its editor was perennially out to lunch, the Guide was amended 'by any passing stranger who happened to wander into the empty offices on an afternoon and saw something worth doing.' This anonymous group effort ends up outselling Encyclopedia Galactica even though 'it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate.'"^[38] This comparison of fictional documents in the series, is not unlike the mainstream comparisons between Wikipedia and professional Encyclopedias.^[39]

Claims of negative impact of Wikipedia on culture

Andrew Keen's 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture asserted the proliferation of user-generated content on Wikipedia obscured and devalued traditional, higher-quality information outlets.^[40]