As I read through this article I think about the high school class that I observed the last few weeks. The teacher was teaching how to write a research paper and, more importantly, how to find good scholarly sources. As I walked around pretending I was an expert on this particular skill I desperately wanted to just tell students to start at Wikipedia and then move on from there. That's how I've done it for many different types of papers. While the information may be,"no more immune to human nature than any other utopian project. Pettiness, idiocy, and vulgarity are regular features of the site" (Schiff), it still serves as a good starting point for any research.
I found the history given in this article to be very interesting. Sometimes I feel like someone has a good idea and it only really takes off when combined (or taken) with something else. It reminds me a lot of the whole Facebook story. In the beginning Wales and Sanger created a website that only got a few articles and when they were introduced to wiki software the whole entire website took off. I find it very interesting to learn how Wikipedia began, given I never really thought about the fact it was created. I guess I always just assumed it had always been there.
I also find it very interesting to read about the 'editors' or 'authors' of this website. I have always known that anyone can post literally anything on this website, which is makes it unreliable for research perfectly understandable. I cannot imagine taking the time to go through random articles and edit them, I honestly can even imagine taking the time to create an article..not that there is a lot of broad topics left to be written about. I also can picture these people, with their degrees, sitting in their mother's kitchen waiting for dinner to be served and editing away at wikipedia. I laugh a little bit at this image to be completely honest. I don't believe there is such a thing a useless knowledge, but some of the things you can find on wikipedia are just simply ridiculous and not even jeopardy worthy!
Melody,
ReplyDeleteI agree! Wikipedia is a great starting point for research. Because there are references (all that "made up" material had to come from somewhere!), it's so easy to see and visit the sites from which the information was taken. Wikipedia is unreliable? It had references...so... :)
Sometimes I take what I read on Wikipedia with a grain of salt, but, for the most part, I believe what's posted. While there may be be only 5 "employees" (she mentions something in the article, but I don't remember their official title), there are literally THOUSANDS of people that go through and sift the site for expletives and nonsense.
But yes, I completely agree with you. It is a great starting point for just about any research, since there is an article on just about anything you would ever need research on, haha.
I was also interested in the information about the contributors to Wikipedia. All of the different names and types of people was simply fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI think this is proof that Wiki is truly an online community. Like all societies/communities, there are roles for the members. These members are categorized according to their characteristics they portray. The "Gnome" and the "Troll", although fantasy names, are used to categorize the contributors. Also, the fact that people outside of the Wiki community are aware of these roles is even more evidence that it is in fact, a living society in which people can interact and engage one another.
I have to agree with you about some of the information on Wiki being completely ridiculous. Even though most of the information does come from anyone some of it does seem to be reliable. Though like it says in the essay, all of the posts are done anonymously under screen names. For this the information posted by some with a PhD. can not be told apart from a learned fifteen year old. Except of course the way of writing.
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