Wikipedia

So much talk over the free web based encyclopedia, Wikipedia...Can you trust it? Should you use it? Why do my professors hate it? The thing you have to remember with Wiki is that it IS open to the public for additions and changes, so yes..there are going to be times that it is changed and the truth is stretched slightly or completely tossed out the window and replaced with what sounds good. Even though Wiki has over 1,500 administrators trying their best to monitor the changes made to the site, that number may not be enough to monitor over 75,000 editors. So yes, people can change the information with inaccurate details and before now, may have never gotten away with it. But, as we have talked about, our technology is only getting better and before long, there will be nothing that you can do on-line and not have traced back to you.

When reading the three assignments, NPR Article, Scanner Tracks Who's Changing What on Wikipedia, and The NPR News Blog, and Wired Story, See Who's Editing Wikipedia - Diebold, the CIA, a Campaign, I had no idea that there was a way to trace the activity of the changes being made on Wikipedia. Apparently, Wal-Mart (to name just one) decided that they did not like the information published on the web-encyclopedia so they decided to fix it. They totally changed the publishing's about the wage plan for their company. Prior Montana Senator Conrad Burns' office was guilty of changing information as well to fix an article published to make him sound good.

To me this is almost crazy because even after doing all of the research I have done on Wikipedia, I would have never thought that the main people of Wal-Mart and the Senators of our country would honestly be logging on to Wiki to change their articles. To me, that was almost like Brittany Spears wanting to google herself all day to see what was being said about her. I never realized how much Wiki was really used by people for serious matters. I think that the fact that there are people out there who really do use Wikipedia as a "fact-based-source", and may really put faith in the articles published is what led to the development of the Wiki Scanner. With this tool, you can trace IP addresses back to the responsible party/parties who are making these changes.

You have to remember that our teachers are forbidding the use of Wiki as a source for a reason...and this would be it. My advice to everyone is to use Wiki the way that I have and still do. Wikipedia should be used as a "starter-site." When you pull up your subject of interest in Wiki, you will find tons of articles with tons of hyperlinks stored in them. Click on those hyperlinks and chances are that before long you will start landing on pages that have url's ending in .edu and that have authors who give references and contact information. That, in my opinion, is where Wiki makes life so much easier. Instead of searching forever just to get started, you can just log into Wiki and find great leads!