In a sea of disinformation, why is Wikipedia so accurate?

Wikipedia was once an unreliable source, used as a tool for advancing biased agendas. Today, it's extraordinarily accurate, a modern wonder in a world defined by disinformation. How did that happen?

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I: A wonder of the world

Wikipedia is one of the wonders of the modern world, one of the crowning achievements of our species. The English edition currently features 6,848,115 articles, comprising 4.5 billion words—the equivalent of roughly 56,000 full-length nonfiction books. It contains entries that, cumulatively, provide a compelling overview of the vast sum of human knowledge.

It also offers obscure information you never knew you needed. If, for example, you were hoping to find out who has been killed by a coconut, Wikipedia is there to help with an entire page dedicated to the subject. You might think that coconuts only kill by falling from trees, death raining down from above, but Americans are uniquely committed to one method of disproportionate demise.

As the coconut entry helpfully explains, “In December 1923, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, a man was killed while trying to crack open a coconut with the butt end of a loaded revolver. The gun discharged and the man was shot in the abdomen.” In another instance, an angry monkey kept in captivity in Thailand threw a coconut at his master, killing him. These facts, I humbly suggest, do not appear in the Encyclopedia Britannica.¹

Alternatively, you might wonder about the Buttered Cat Paradox. As we all know, cats always land on their feet and buttered toast always, alas, falls face down, our clumsiness ruining out breakfast. These are ironclad laws of Newtonian physics. So, what would happen if buttered toast were strapped—butter side up—to the back of a cat? Wikipedia is there to help.

My personal favorite, perhaps, is the entry for “spite houses,” which are exactly as described. The Skinny House in Boston, for example, was built after one brother sneakily built a large house on a jointly inherited plot of land. The victim came home to this rude architectural affront and, to spite his sibling, built a house on the sliver of land aimed at blocking sunlight into the larger house.²

Wikipedia also offers entries on the surprisingly recent history of high fives; the Wicked Bible; witch windows; gravity hills; a replica of Jackson Hole in China; the, ahem, unusual Haesindang Park in South Korea; and Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, which has had a dog for a mayor since 1998, starting with an “adopted dog ‘of unknown parentage’ named Goofy Borneman-Calhoun.”³

II: An island of truth in a sea of lies

These articles are—like most (far more important) Wikipedia entries online today—astonishingly accurate. There are still mistakes, distortions, and biases, of course, but the overwhelming majority of information on Wikipedia is factual and truthful. Crucially, you can also discover where information came from, as the citation system allows you to verify underlying sources and check the accuracy for yourself.

It wasn’t always so. In the early days of Wikipedia, it was regularly condemned by teachers and professors who admonished their pupils never to rely on the unsubstantiated swamp that Wikipedia could be. Indeed, in countless amusing incidents, Wikipedia pages have been edited in memorable ways, such as these two below.⁴ (Our thoughts are with you in that moment of panic, Bravepickle).

At one moment, in which former Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan yet again failed to stand up to Trump, the Wikipedia entry for invertebrates was edited, showcasing Ryan alongside horseshoe crabs and velvet worms.

Over time, however, Wikipedia has become increasingly credible, these amusing episodes of vandalism or misinformation dealt with swiftly. This reliability presents an intriguing puzzle, because Wikipedia’s accuracy renaissance is happening against the backdrop of a deteriorating internet that is flooded with junk, propaganda, disinformation, blatant lies, and AI-generated sludge.

How has Wikipedia done it? The answer—drawing on recently published research—doesn’t just provide a window into the world of online knowledge production; it also helps us better understand how toxic political cultures can warp political parties over time, amplifying extremism and purging voices of reason.