Alright! Someone had to say it — might as well be me, from my IT cave in JB.
Every now and then, someone reads one of my articles, scrolls to the bottom, sees the References section, and feels compelled to tell me — with the confidence of a first-year university lecturer who just discovered APA formatting — that Wikipedia is “not a valid source.” As if I have committed some kind of intellectual crime. As if I should be ashamed. As if the ghost of every academic librarian is collectively shaking their head at me.
Let me explain why I use Wikipedia. Not defend. Explain. There is a difference. And by the end of this, you might agree with me. Or you might not. Either way, I am not changing my References section. Here is why.
Wikipedia is the least broken model we have
The criticism of Wikipedia is well-rehearsed: anyone can edit it, it is not peer-reviewed, it contains errors, it is not a primary source. All of these things are true. But here is what the critics miss: every source has these problems. Academic journals have retracted papers. News organisations have published corrections — sometimes years later, buried on page 17. Books contain errors that survive multiple editions because nobody bothered to update chapter three. The difference with Wikipedia is that the errors are visible. The edit history is public. The talk page debates are open. You can see the sausage being made. With a traditional encyclopaedia, the sausage arrives on your doorstep in a leather binding and you are supposed to trust it because it looks expensive.
I have worked in IT my entire adult life. I understand systems. And the Wikipedia model — open contribution, transparent revision history, community moderation, citation requirements — is, from a systems perspective, the most robust general-knowledge platform ever built. It is not perfect. Nothing is. But its imperfections are auditable. You can trace every claim to its source. You can see who added it and when. You can check the discussion that surrounded it. Try doing that with a Britannica article from 2005.
My blog is not a PhD thesis — and that is the point
Let me be blunt. I am not writing for an academic journal. I am writing for a Gen-X audience scrolling their phone during lunch break, or lying in bed at midnight, or sitting in a kopitiam waiting for their teh tarik to arrive. My readers want to understand a topic — the Dajjal, deepfakes, the Higgs boson, whatever — and then move on with their lives. They do not need a bibliography of 47 peer-reviewed papers, most of which sit behind paywalls that cost RM200 per article. They need a link that works, to a page that explains the thing clearly, that they can actually read. Wikipedia does that. Consistently. For free. In 300 languages.
If I linked to academic papers behind paywalls, exactly three people would click them — and two of those would be accidental. If I link to Wikipedia, my readers actually follow the link. They learn something. The reference does its job. That is not laziness. That is usability. I design my blog for readers, not for peer reviewers.
Gatekeeping knowledge is exactly what I write against
This is the part that matters most to me. One of the recurring themes across my 400-plus articles is that institutions — religious, academic, political, corporate — use gatekeeping as a form of control. “You cannot understand this text unless you have the proper training.” “You cannot interpret this doctrine unless you are an accredited authority.” “You cannot cite this source unless it passes our institutional standards.” The gate stays closed. The gatekeepers stay comfortable. Knowledge becomes property.
Wikipedia is the largest-scale rebellion against knowledge gatekeeping in human history. It says: here is what we know, here is how we know it, here is where we got it — and if you think we got it wrong, here is the edit button. That philosophy aligns with everything I believe about how information should work. Accessible. Transparent. Open to challenge. If you are going to criticise me for using Wikipedia, you need to understand that you are not just criticising a source. You are criticising the idea that knowledge should belong to everyone, not just the people who can afford the subscription fees.
The real test: does the link work?
Here is my practical test for a reference. Can my reader click it, right now, and land on a page that explains the concept I referenced? If yes, the reference works. If the page is behind a paywall, or has rotted away since I linked it three years ago, or requires a university login — the reference has failed. It does not matter how prestigious the journal is. A broken link is a broken link.
Wikipedia links work. I know this because I test them. Every single reference in every article I write gets verified before I publish. Wikipedia pages do not disappear behind paywalls. They do not get bought by private equity firms and converted into content farms. They do not require you to create an account or hand over your email address. They just work. In a world where most of the internet is slowly being walled off — news sites with three-article limits, academic databases with institutional logins, research locked behind Springer and Elsevier — Wikipedia remains stubbornly, beautifully, open. That is not a weakness. That is the entire point.
So yes. I use Wikipedia for my References section. I will continue to use Wikipedia. If that bothers you, I respect your right to be bothered. But while you are composing your comment about citation standards, my readers have already clicked the link, read the article, learned something, and moved on. And that — not institutional approval — is what I am here for. XAXAXA!