Hello,
This
week in my communication theory class we learned the ins and outs of Wikipedia.
We talked about the many criticisms and benefits of Wikipedia, the ways in
which people have come to use Wikipedia and how it has changed the way we go
about research and finding information. Wikipedia is a website that allows any number of individuals to create and edit a webpage, the collaborative use of the wikis are created using a wiki software ( Lacetti, & Dul, 2012). This software uses standardized coding and style manuals to ensure the cohesive appearance of articles.
In order for us to understand the processes involved in the editing and creation of articles we were asked to create an article ourselves from a "stub" previously created. "A stub is an article deemed too short to provide encyclopedic coverage of a subject ("Wikipedia:Stub," n.d.)." I chose the stub Caribbean Coral Reef Ecosystems Program which is about the research program and station that monitors human impacts on the ecosystems of corral reefs and mangrove swamps.
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| Part of my Wikipedia post. |
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| Part of my Wikipedia post |
Creating this wikipedia post has made me realize a lot about the way in which wikipedia works and it's reliability. People have always told me that wikipedia is a media source that anyone can have full access to, making their own edits and inserting what ever information they feel is valid and true. Up until this point it was always in the back of my head to only use wikipedia as a starting off point or a place to find references related to what I was looking for but it had never really sunk in that wikipedia really is not the most valid source of information. Through this assignment it became evident that if I can write an Article about something I did not know a whole lot about any ones else could too, which is an alarming thought because this may be the only source people use to inform themselves about a multitude of topics. This became even more evident to me when I was talking to a fellow class mate, Lindsay, who told about how the wikipedia page she had made on superfood had been changed after she created it and now displays incorrect information. Because I'm not an expert or anywhere close to it on this topic I would have had no idea that the information in the article was wrong and could have been mislead if I did not go ahead and do more research into the topic.
A criticism of wikipedia is that there are often the same people editing the articles and so there may be their own biases ("Susceptibility to bias," n.d.) in the posts and that because it is the same people they might not be the most highly informed on all the topics they write edit. While going through this assignment I learned how difficult it is to properly format a wikipedia and therefore have come to a realization of why it is that it is the same people continually editing the articles. I feel as though if you do not have a strong computer background it would be very difficult to edit an article which would most likely deter highly knowledge people from editing articles if they did not have the time to learn the formatting behind the processes of the editing.
References:
Lacetti, J. & Dul, E. (2012). March 19: Wiki writing (slideshare slides). Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/sebutters
Susceptibility to bias. (n.d.). In Reliability of wikipedia wiki. Retrieved March 23, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#Susceptibility_to_bias
Wikipedia:Stub. (n.d.). In Wikipedia:Stub. Retrieved March 23, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Stub
