For this week’s reading we read the first half of The World and Wikipedia: How We Are Editing Reality. I found this book to be really interesting because I had always wondered how Wikipedia had started and this book explains it. I had never really equated the site to an encyclopedia before, but after reading about its beginnings I have come to find that it actually is an encyclopedia, a very dense one. I also thought it was amazing how fast information is gathered on this site. In the past ten years Wikipedia has collected well over three million articles (p.39), which is infinitely more than the old fashioned book encyclopedias. It has also been translated into over 250 languages (p.49), making it available to a lot more people.
One of the biggest criticisms and praises of Wikipedia is that information can be uploaded and edited by anyone. I would have to agree with this criticism because while this process makes it available to everyone, it is also making it available to people who may not know what they are talking about. This lends room to many errors and carelessness that does not always get “edited” right away. While there is heavy traffic on the site, with thousands of edits everyday, information is still left untouched that may not get an edit for a while. Because of this many people view Wikipedia as a faulty source of information. I know as a student, many professors do not consider Wikipedia as a valid source for this very reason. Unfortunately, the site is so irresistible to use because of the ease and accessibility. From information on “Bacon Mania” (p.11) to the 9/11 WTC attacks, this site has just about anything you could want to research, the question is how good is the information?
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