Wikipedia, It's So Open

I have always loved Wikipedia. Like Google, I am afraid that its usefulness just always seemed to outweigh its deficiencies. It is always the first result to appear in a Google search and once I learned that the Supreme Court was using it, I really just let go of most of my reservations. I mean if the highest court in the land is doing it, then who am I to question?

But when I went about registering as a member of Wikipedia and became fully aware of the mess I could potentially make, I realized that there were some slight differences. For one, Google is like this divine untouchable thing in the Internet world. Sure, we can all use it but for the most part its technology is off limits to us. Not so with Wikipedia. Wiki is like this lowly, more common-man thing that is fully capable of being touched, corrupted, molded, etc. It's interesting that such a trusted source is so open and as a company, Wikipedia is proud of it. What an entirely different approach to climbing the ladder to Internet greatness. While most companies relish in their own exclusive claim to a product or an idea, Wikipedia has no secret. Its intellectual property is us.