Remember what your mom told you? You can't believe everything you read? Wikipedia is a fine example of this. We must remember that this is a site that can be edited by anyone, so we shouldn't rely on the information to stand alone. It goes further than that now. Corporations can easily edit unfavorable articles about themselves to make them more positive. Likewise, consumers can easily edit articles to make them not so positive. The Wikiscanner has helped identify where ther entried are coming from. If an entry is coming from within the office of a corporation, then we can weigh that information carefully; if the edit is from a consumer, we can do the same. Either way, we must uyse a discriminating eye when reading ANY online information, not just that of Wikipedia.
This article, which discusses Wikipedia edits, was posted by a student in one of my online classes. It is from The New York Times. Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/19/technology/19wikipedia.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&ref=technology
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
The information on Wikipedia as well as other webpages must be viewed with a careful eye. Stakeholders such as consumers or corporations are not the only ones who have something to gain by doctoring the information on Wikepedia. What about governments or hate groups as just two examples. So how do we critically view the information on such webpages? I for one would like to learn about some strategies to help determine the accuracy of the information besides the stand byes like look for multiple sources that support the information in question.
Post a Comment