Here's the question: Should Jimmy Wales use Potter's Box to think through the ethical responsibilities inherent in screening who posts information to an online encyclopedia? If you were him, what would you put in the different quadrents of P.B.? What would your final answer be?
Please note: To answer this question, you'll want to know who Jimmy Wales is and what Potter's Box does. Link here for a two-part story in The Boston Globe that will help you answer question No. 1. I can't link you to our textbook for question No. 2, but you'll find Potter's Box in Chapter 14. But you already knew that, right?
Post your answers as comments to this post. There will be prompts in the comment field that show you how to do it.
A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.
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About Me
- Pete
- Springfield (Ill.), United States
- I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.
3 comments:
Lauren M.'s post
I don't think that Wales should use Potter's Box in the decision of who posts or who doesnt. I believe that the only solution to the problem is to have some one checking these "posts" constantly for acuracy. Potter's box takes you through 4 different stages, facts, values, principles, and loyalties. All these seem like logical criteria, but the potter's box method says you can go through these steps in any order. By being able to do this, you can come to many different conclusions on the same issue. How does this seem to really solve the ethical issue of who can post? Why even bother if you will be able to come up with a million different conclusions? My answer is to hire on a staff that can monitor all posts to the wikipedia and correct any wrongful ones.
I don't think that Wales should use Potter's Box in his decision of how posts or who doesnt.
I don't think Wales created this website as a pure factual site. I think he wanted to create a place where people could go to find a little bit of info on a certain subject. As far as anyone being able to go in and edit, that is something that needs to be monitored. I think instead of using the Potter's Box to decipher who can go in and edit, he should use it to decipher what will be posted. Only the facts should be posted, and if anyone wants to go in and add onto the facts, that is one thing, but it is totally inappropriate for people to be allowed to go in and add false and offensive information. I think the site should be monitored in an effort to keep the false and offensive garbage deleted.
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