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Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that allows everyone to edit its articles. It has been around for more than six years.

Everything has its pros and cons, and Wikipedia is no exception. The one great pro about Wikipedia is that it is free unlike the other world renown encyclopedias like Encarta, Worldbook, and Britanica that require the users to pay subscription fees in order to read the full version of their articles. Being free allows information to spread faster, and enables more people to be educated. Another pro is that articles can be updated at anytime. This allows any errors to be amended or information to be updated in real time. This is useful especially when an event causes a fact no longer valid. For example, a country may have a new leader which caused the information telling us the previous leader is the current leader no longer valid. Such is not possible for printed encylopedias or encylopedias that prohibit amendments. However, allowing the freedom of editing can be a con as well. A person who edits the contents may include inaccurate and possibly, defamatory remarks into the articles. Wikimedia Foundation, the operators of Wikimedia now requires each article to have proper citations, and to be written according to its guidelines. I think this is the foundation's attempt to improve the credibility of its encyclopedia. However, even though it is now requirement for each article to have proper citations, the sources that a person relied on for his or her article may not be accurate or reliable at all.

Although Wikipedia is free to everyone, what is free may come with a price as well. By allowing anyone to submit articles, the accurate and authenticity of the articles can be in doubt. Imagine someone who knows nothing about medicine writing an article on a specific disease. And so, relying on the article for a cure can spell disaster. Therefore, in my opinion, the Wikimedia Foundation should allow only people who are expects to write articles related to their field of studies. If this is not possible, then the articles must be approved by the experts first before putting them online. To get additional funding, the foundation could, in my opinion, try to get legitimate organizations to provide money for the purpose of educating the public. It must be able to convince the organizations that it strives to provide accurate information to the public for free. This can be done by requiring the organization to approved the article

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