The worthlessness of Wiki

A popular method of comparing political ideologies today is by placement on a horizontal straight-line continuum, where Left of the exact center of the line is classified as "liberal" and Right of center is "conservative." For most, such an overly simplistic approach is enough when debating two presidential candidates like Dennis Kucinich and Newt Gingrich. But I do find some interest in more complicated methods which add more depth to a given position or belief by adding a vertical axis. However, before you go researching the definitions of the horizontal and vertical axes in "the free encyclopedia" Wikipedia, consider my experience in just the last half hour.

I was directed to Wikipedia's entry on "Right-wing politics" from another website and noted Fascism and Nazism were listed as right-wing ideologies. I navigated to the links for each and found an extreme and near-violent divide in the wiki-contributorsphere over their definitions. I bounced back and forth to various entries and noticed some changes, some rather significant, based upon the opinions of users lobbying their positions. Which gave me pause to wonder how our high school youth can cite to Wikipedia as a legitimate source if definitions can change at the whim of some volunteer who feels it necessary to be sure the uninformed know that George W. Bush has the same political mindset and agenda as all our enemies in World War II...so to wiki-speak.