Scientology: As told by Wikipedia

After auditing Wikipedia's page on Scientology, I have come to the conclusion that Wikipedia cannot be used as a scholarly source because of the biased opinions present. Because there were 266 works that were cited and used in the Scientology page, the amount of research done on the topic is the strength of Wikipedia. The weakness of Wikipedia is the biased nature of it and the amount of outdated and invalid sources that are cited. The semi-protection that the Scientology page is under assures users that not just any Wikipedia editor can edit the page. However, because the Scientology page is supported by WikiProject Scientology, the biased nature of the page is more questionable. Although WikiProject Scientology claims that they promote Wikipedia editors who have an unbiased view of Scientology, they also claim that they support editors who seek to improve Scientology's image as a whole. Therefore, the negative press surrounding Scientology is not present in the page and this editing can be seen as biased.

The strength that Wikipedia has in providing a large list of cited sources allows people to do further research on the topics given. This shows that technology has changed the American culture from one that relies on "hear say" information on controversial matters to one that is more prone to do research on those topics. Although the information that people obtain from Wikipedia is likely to be more abundant than the information obtained from other people, the quality of the information on Wikipedia remains questionable. Because most Wikipedia users probably do not look into the sources that are cited on Wikipedia pages, this shows that the American culture is also one that does not question the validity of information given to them.

Through this experience of auditing Wikipedia's page on Scientology, I have learned the importance of doing further research on topics searched on Wikipedia by looking into the sources that are cited on the Wikipedia pages. It has also now come to my attention that the authors of works cited can be repeated many times and therefore have a large influence on the contents of the Wikipedia page. I have also learned that pages on Wikipedia can be supported by groups and be semi-protected by Wikipedia. In any future use of Wikipedia, I will be more wary of the validity of it's contents and will visit the works cited to determine if the Wikipedia page is biased.