I love watching The Office and I really love Steve Carell. His personality fits the stereotype of people that believe everything on the internet is factual including Wikipedia. Wikipedia is quite the concept. As Jonathon Zittrain described in the video, Wikipedia was a “stupid” idea. It is not supposed to work. The fact that anyone can post anything and other people can verify the information or have it removed is pretty fascinating. Zittrain said there are more people checking the pages for errors then there are contributors. These people are not compensated, they just do it because they care that the information is accurate. According to the Wikipedia website, there are 3,457,771 articles in English and 22,032,594 pages. The number of articles is amazing but the number of edits of those articles is 423,025,076. This means that for every one article there are 122 edits. This is powerful. The website says Wikipedia operates under five pillars: “Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia; Wikipedia has a neutral point of view; Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit and distribute; Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner; Wikipedia does not have firm rules” (www.wikipedia.com). For me, Wikipedia is a great place to start. It is a good place to find out quick information on something that is not that important, like what type a certain tree is or just something I’m curious about. For an educational paper or a business decision, I start with Wikipedia to get a general idea of what it is I’m searching for. I then find more credible sources and many of those sources come from Wikipedia itself. If you look in the reference section of the article you can find very credible sources. Websites to college professor’s articles or business magazines are fairly easy to find.
Wikipedia is the site that I probably use the most. It's my go to place to find quick info or just to read an article. I find that is mostly reliable, only once finding an article that was obviously misused. I was glad to find out from the video that there are so many people willing to keep the site running.
I admit it. When I am researching any subject matter, I read the Wikipedia page first. Then I branch out my search based on what I read on Wikipedia. I'm not sure why, but I have it in the back of my head that Wikipedia is not a valid source. I'm not sure where I got this notion from but it is always lingering in the back of my mind as I read a Wikipedia article. But I usually find the Wikipedia articles easy to read and understand. That is why I always start my research there. I feel better knowing that there are Wikipedia police.
I really like Wikipedia as well. I found out last year though that we were not allowed to cite Wikipedia in any of our papers or use it as an academic resource. So, like Ande, I end up looking at Wikipedia first and then comparing everything else to what Wiki said.
I love watching The Office and I really love Steve Carell. His personality fits the stereotype of people that believe everything on the internet is factual including Wikipedia. Wikipedia is quite the concept. As Jonathon Zittrain described in the video, Wikipedia was a “stupid” idea. It is not supposed to work. The fact that anyone can post anything and other people can verify the information or have it removed is pretty fascinating. Zittrain said there are more people checking the pages for errors then there are contributors. These people are not compensated, they just do it because they care that the information is accurate.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the Wikipedia website, there are 3,457,771 articles in English and 22,032,594 pages. The number of articles is amazing but the number of edits of those articles is 423,025,076. This means that for every one article there are 122 edits. This is powerful. The website says Wikipedia operates under five pillars: “Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia; Wikipedia has a neutral point of view; Wikipedia is free content that anyone can edit and distribute; Wikipedians should interact in a respectful and civil manner; Wikipedia does not have firm rules” (www.wikipedia.com).
For me, Wikipedia is a great place to start. It is a good place to find out quick information on something that is not that important, like what type a certain tree is or just something I’m curious about. For an educational paper or a business decision, I start with Wikipedia to get a general idea of what it is I’m searching for. I then find more credible sources and many of those sources come from Wikipedia itself. If you look in the reference section of the article you can find very credible sources. Websites to college professor’s articles or business magazines are fairly easy to find.
Wikipedia is the site that I probably use the most. It's my go to place to find quick info or just to read an article. I find that is mostly reliable, only once finding an article that was obviously misused. I was glad to find out from the video that there are so many people willing to keep the site running.
ReplyDeleteI admit it. When I am researching any subject matter, I read the Wikipedia page first. Then I branch out my search based on what I read on Wikipedia. I'm not sure why, but I have it in the back of my head that Wikipedia is not a valid source. I'm not sure where I got this notion from but it is always lingering in the back of my mind as I read a Wikipedia article. But I usually find the Wikipedia articles easy to read and understand. That is why I always start my research there. I feel better knowing that there are Wikipedia police.
ReplyDeletePosted by Ande Gibbs
I really like Wikipedia as well. I found out last year though that we were not allowed to cite Wikipedia in any of our papers or use it as an academic resource. So, like Ande, I end up looking at Wikipedia first and then comparing everything else to what Wiki said.
ReplyDelete