Summary
This article gives two perspectives on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.com. On one hand wikipedia is great and allows the world a stage to share, and compare information. On the other hand people can post false information either maliciously or not. In some cases this false information was caught and changed quickly by the wikipedia staff. In other cases like Mr. Seigenthaler who was accused on Wikipedia of being involved in the Kennedy assasination it took him complaining about the article for it to get changed. In the four months that it was posted online many people took it as factual and it was even published in books. These books have since been "debunked" but the damage was already done. So even though wikipedia created a place for scholars to rub elbows with the general public, if not monitered correctly could cause harm. Wikipedia has taken steps and vowed to focus more on the quality of the information as opposed to how many topics they can have posted.
Response
In the techological world we are living in, Wikipedia has become a household name. People love the simplicity of just hopping online and typing in their favorite celebrity (Britney Spears), or any random topic they need info on and it just poping up. Information at your fingertips is great and if not for Wikipedia another online encylopedia of this nature would have been created. Thats is why I believe scholard need to embrace this site as it is not going anywhere. In the article it said many scholars have taken on the mentality that "if you can't beat em' join em'". If there are problems with accuracy on the site then scholars and the creaters of Wikipedia need to work together to correct the problem. This is a much better option than just shunning the website altogether.
0 comments:
Post a Comment