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Credibility and Neutrality in “Free Solo Climbing”

Laurel Dentinger

Honors 240

September 20, 2016

As an informative resource, Wikipedia serves to provide readers with explicit facts and figures to allow audiences to form their own conclusions. This practice seems especially helpful when considering opinion-based papers or theses, which require writers to gather unbiased, factual information and then craft a perspective to write their essay in their own direction. Though Wikipedia strives to achieve this goal, having each article written by a different person and edited by whomever feels they have adequate knowledge results in some questions regarding the accuracy and neutrality of the writing; “Free Solo Climbing” serves as a great example of how Wikipedia articles usually contain a lot of useful information, but can still have questionable precision and bias.

Using the given guidelines, Wikipedia authors should write with a “neutral point of view,” and “no original research.” [1]   To begin, the author of this article wrote a clear, concise opening statement that seems to adhere to the website’s policies. However, the first subheading, “Motivations,” moves into a much more subjective topic. While motivation for competing in such a dangerous activity could be intriguing, stating that an “adrenaline rush” causes climbers to continue their sport probably requires some sort of citation, unless the author is utilizing some sort of personal research or experience, which is also forbidden.[2] Additionally, the section titled “Difficult free solo ascents” provides no sort of concrete definition for what a constitutes a run as “difficult.”[3] The author does not specify whether the 5.14 range is a legitimate cutoff point for classifying a higher range or simply a decision made by the person who wrote this article; there is no citation to provide concrete justification.

Going further into the text, the author provides certain instances of bias that tamper with the neutrality of this article. For example, in the “Notable accidents” section, the author specifies the fall of Jimmy Jewell as ironic, which could lessen the implicit severity of the statement revealing how the climber died.[4] Wikipedia executives also require that authors cite all sources used for every piece of information given on the page. This author fails to do so in a few areas; first, the deaths of Vik Henderson and Robert Steele do not contain citations, which are necessary to ensure that these facts are reported correctly.[5] Secondly, there is evident speculation around Michael Reardon’s difficult ascent, which should not be included in this article if there is not substantial factual backing.[6]

As a whole, this Wikipedia article provides a decent amount of factual information in a relatively neutral manner; when compared to an article such as “Sheer Madness” by Daniel Duane, which provides personal experiences, interviews, and opinions, this Wikipedia article fulfills its job accurately.[7] While more citations should be added to bolster the credibility of this author’s work, the overall result is well-informed and concise, which exemplifies exactly what Wikipedia stands for as an online encyclopedia.

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[1] “Wikipedia: Policies and guidelines.” (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines

[2] “Free solo climbing.” (2016, September 9). Retrieved September 20, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing

[3] see note 2

[4] see note 2

[5] see note 2

[6] see note 2

[7] Duane, D. (2015, May 30). “Sheer Madness.” Retrieved September 20, 2016.

Bibliography

Duane, D. (2015, May 30). “Sheer Madness.” Retrieved September 20, 2016 from  http://www.lexisnexis.com/hottopics/lnacademic/

“Free solo climbing.” (2016, September 9). Retrieved September 20, 2016, from      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing

“Wikipedia: Policies and guidelines.” (n.d.). Retrieved September 20, 2016, from     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines

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