Response to class discussion- gatekeeping/credibility

We spoke about gatekeeping and credibility when it comes to online blogging, citizen journalism, and of course the infamous Wikipedia. The big problem with Wikipedia is that it is a form of citizen journalism, where regular, non "experts" are the ones who are putting out the information for other viewers to then go and research.

In my opinion, this is a huge problem, and even though our class discussion didn't change my overall opinion about this topic, it surely gave me a different angle to view this problem. As I believe that a research site, such as Wikipedia, should have "experts" per say who are delivering the important information for viewers to then research, our class discussion brought up the key point, well who are these "experts" and is their credibility really that much more valid than a regular joe schmo?

In my opinion, the answer is definitely yes, there are more educated, intellectual, studied people who have been working hard and studying to become these "experts," and the general public should be more inclined to listen to these people instead of possibly uneducated people who do this for fun. That's the point of blogs to me, for these regular joe schmos to give their personal opinions based off of journalistic pieces that are 100% objective. But in a research site like Wikipedia, where people go to find true facts and information, I think you shouldn't have uninformed, studied people writing the information with possibly some subjectivity thrown into the articles, because that's what blogs are for. There are people out there who are naturally smarter and then on top of that, work and study harder to gain more information to then put out to the general public, and it's important to have these people gatekeeping and researching the information that the public sees.