Response #10: The experience of editing Wikipedia December 1, 2009

  Before doing the wikipedia project, I had never edited a page on wikipedia or created a new one. To be honest, I was a little intimidated of how to present content, what resources to use, how to use the site’s editing formats, and fearful that someone would take my edits down or that they would not be approved. With all that said, I was relived when I realized that it wasn’t as intimidating as I thought it would be and my edits are still up. It feels good to know that I contributed to a free open source encyclopedia that anyone can access.

What really helped me was the wikipedia step by step tutorial, it really makes the whole editing process much easier and it really is user friendly. I think that anyone who is interested in editing or posting on wikipedia should read over all the tutorial steps because not only does it simplify the process, but it also eliminates room for error in editing formats, citations, links and resources.

After I posted my edits, I was pretty excited to see that they were still up there, and that I was able to add more information on something I was interested in. It was also reassuring to see that the page editor had seen my edits, citations and resources. After seeing the internal workings of wikipedia, I still think it’s a great free information resource. I also think that people who spend time learning about the editing process and actually research a topic, are most likely serious about the information that they are intending posting. In class we covered the issue of inaccuracies on wikipedia and the lack editing guidelines, but after doing the project I really think that the majority of people editing on wikipedia are serious about what they are doing, because it can be a time consuming process. There is always room for error and for some inaccurate edits to slip through the cracks. This has led to restrictions on editing to certain pages, such as articles on people.

 I think Wikipedia is a very impressive project that has a lot of potential for more growth. I encourage people to play around with Wikipedia; I’m glad I did!

Interested in who these “editors and contributors” are on wikipedia? Check out this video from CBS News.

Response #9 November 18, 2009

Wikipedia a Good Resource..

I know many people question the accuracy and validity of Wikipedia, for good reasons, but personally I’m a fan of both the site itself and what Wikipedia stands for. Founder Jimmy Wales’s open source enclyopedia allows anyone to create and edit articles on just about any topic. The goal of the project is to give everyone with Internet access the other opportunity to access this free encyclopedia, which is also available in many languages. As of today there are a total of 3,097,167 articles, and 18,586,975 pages in the English version. Wow!

 

I think that the concept of Wikipedia is great and the cause is noble, but since it is an open source platform and anyone can become an expert and make tweaks, this is where users need to proceed with caution. Users should be aware that there will be information that is inaccurate and maybe even false altogether. Personally, I use Wikipedia to get background information but since I know that people can make edits at anytime, I would most likely not use it as a primary source or my sole source of information. Wikipedia attempts to verify the posted information but sometimes not everything can be confirmed.

 

Just because there can be inaccuracies on Wikipedia doesn’t mean it’s not a good free encyclopedia, and Wikipedia has the potential to be even better if there was more of a review process and more restrictions and guidelines for posting articles or making edits. Browsing around Wikipedia I came across a page that catalogs mistakes and omissions in the Encyclopedia Britannica. It’s interesting to check out!

 

There is always room for error and Wikipedia does have a general disclaimer stating “to be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information.” With that said, users should be smart about what they use Wikipedia for.

 

Check out this video of news personality Brian Williams as he discusses his biography entry posted onWikipedia!!