Wikipedia:External peer review/JAH2006

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Journal of American History (June 2006)[edit]

Roy Rosenzweig (June 2006). "Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past". The Journal of American History. 93 (1): 117–146.

Findings[edit]

  • "History is probably the category encompassing the largest number of articles", but the collaborative editing makes it unlike virtually any other scholarly work in that field.
  • Wikipedia articles have numerous authors, many of whom may be anonymous, and there is no expectation that their names are used when discussing their articles.
  • "This extraordinary freedom and cooperation make Wikipedia the most important application of the principles of the free and open-source software movement to the world of cultural, rather than software, production."
  • The freedom of reuse allowed by open licensing of content is an important advantage for educational uses.