Here's a recent example of what goes wrong with Wikipedia. When crocodile hunter Steve Irwin died Sept. 4, the NEWS.com.au network service, a part of Rupert Murdopch's media empire, reported:
INTERNET encyclopedia Wikipedia was forced to remove an offensive message posted on its entry for Steve Irwin within minutes of the Crocodile Hunter's death earlier today.Typical, both the encyclopedia's critics and its defenders would say. Malicious information was broadcast immediately, as the critics maintain. And it was swiftly corrected, as the defenders are equally swift to reply.
Within minutes of the news of Irwin's death breaking this afternoon, someone had written: "Steve Irwin's dead! LOLOLOLOLOL!" on the biography of the Australian icon.
The entry was quickly spotted and removed from the page.
Wikipedia even came up in class the other day. I like to use it myself -- carefully! -- as a starting point for research. Other instructors at SCI stay away from it, and not without good reason. Let's read up on it, decide what some of the issues are and come to our own evaluation of Wikipedia as a class. In addition to its usefulness -- or lack of usefulness! -- as a research tool, I think some of the stuff that's written about Wikipedia tells us something about the nature of the internet and the role of mass communications in general.
Here, for starters, is the Wikipedia entry on, yep, you guessed it, Wikipedia ... of course, it might be kind of suspect, because it's Wikipedia writing about Wikipedia, but then if everybody can write in, then it should be objective, shouldn't it? Read it and decide for yourself!
And here's what an opinion writer for the British Broadcasting Co. News website has to say about it. "The Beeb" is arguably the most objective news site in the world.
A longer look at Wikipedia appeared in The New Yorker a couple of months ago. I think it's the best thing written on the subject. You may not have time to read it in class, but I'll bet you will between now and the midterm.
(BTW, do you realize what I just told you?)
So, google around, see what's been written pro and con, and make up your own mind. Here are some questions to ask yourself as you read:
1. How trustworthy is the information? Does the "self-correcting" nature of a wiki work, or is it a handy-dandy tool for character assassination?
2. What does Wikipedia tell us about free speech on the internet? What does it tell us about building cyber-communities on the internet?
3. Would you use Wikipedia for a term paper? If so, what precautions would you take to verify information?
2 comments:
Hi Eric --
You've got the questions both right, and I agree the AP Stylebook is both handy and dandy. But ... I'm running so many blogs in my classes this semester, it gets confusing. The editing blog is "comm207fall07" (course number and semester).
1. I don't believe that the information posted on Wikipedia is trustworthy. However, I also don't believe it a handy-dandy tool for character assassination, although it could easily serve both purposes (posting trustworthy info, and also assassinating someone's character) if not monitored. I think it is a site created for people to post simple definitions and facts about things, but has also become a site where people show their intelligence, or lack there of, by posting inappropriate, offensive trash.
2. Wikipedia is a prime example of how people take advantage of freedom of speech even on the internet. It is ok to build cyber communities, however you have to be careful because as Wikipedia proves, some people can't handle freedom in a mature fashion. I also have to agree with Gina about the fact that a lot of the information provide within cyber communities is opinion, not fact.
3. I might go to Wikipedia as I am brainstorming in an effort to collect ideas for a term paper, but I probably wouldn't use it as a solid source of information.
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