Mike Dickison Talk: Why Wikipedia Matters, Especially Now

About the event

Wikipedia, now over 20 years old, has been described both as one of the greatest human achievements and the last good thing remaining on the Internet. How did a volunteer-written encyclopaedia, widely ridiculed when it was first launched, become such a crucial part of the world’s store of knowledge?

At this special talk with Dr. Mike Dickison, we’ll explore how Wikipedia works, what happens behind the scenes, and what 250,000 amateur Wikipedians do to keep it alive and accurate. We'll also look at the threat posed by AI-generated text, which has rapidly polluted the world’s information ecosystem but so far has yet to make inroads into Wikipedia, and why the world’s richest man hates an online encyclopaedia so much.

Christchurch-based Dr Mike Dickison, a former museum curator and digital librarian, is the grant-funded 2025 Aotearoa Wikipedian at Large focussed on Banks Peninsula. He has been working with Ashburton District Council to improve the coverage of the Ashburton area.