Wikipedia as controlled vocabulary: crisis of traditional authority control?

Abstract

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, is the first project to have been born specifically from and for the web and which has developed an authority control system for access to their information. Here, the different elements, procedures and principles which make up the Wikipedia authority control system is analysed, and a critical analogy is traced between them and those that meet the traditional authority control applied to bibliographical catalogues. From the critical comparison of both models, one wonders up to what point the authority control, sclerotized by the weight of tradition and by its hopeless adaptation to technology, has been overcome by developments such as Wikipedia which are based on a philosophy of flexibility and common sense and where the rules are decided by and for the user. The enormous potential and reach of the Wikipedia authority model make it a true contender to become the normal system of access to the Semantic Web. Keywords: Wikipedia, controlled vocabulary, authority control, semantic web.