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I think the fact that the site seems to be very good at "self-healing" is a good indicator that there are enough people using Wikipedia that care about accuracy of information, that they would rather help each other out than create an atmosphere of competition whereas "my site is better than yours," etc.
What happens when someone includes something such as political issues? Wouldn't someone on either side of the issue continue to change it to reflect their own preferences more positively, resulting in a battle of perspectives?

I am actually shocked that they do let other people edit the content of the website. What is interesting though is how fast it heals itself. I have notice a couple of changes that I made fixed within on a half hour.

This ability of others being able to change the site does make me more able to believe what is on a site then if only a handful of people where the ones writing the content. The ability to update the information actually allows you to get the insight of thousands of people to get the most accurate information. It reminds of open source software. The ability that companies have to fix bugs in their software faster because so many individuals are writing the code.

Very cool stuff.
R

Hi.
I was wondering if anyone knew why the following happened when i tried to rebuild the weblog:

An error occurred:
Writing to '/users/rit2/g1/mxa1008/www/testblog/styles-site.css.new' failed: Opening local file '/users/rit2/g1/mxa1008/www/testblog/styles-site.css.new' failed: No such file or directory

I believe that almost everything you read on the web is subject to speculation. If you read some information on Wikipedia how can you be certain it is truly accurate? Could that information have been altered by another reader minutes before you read it and not yet have been corrected? If so you may be basing your learning or reading on false information. It is an interesting experiment and used in the proper setting, such as work collaboration, it can be an invaluable tool. But, to take information that is on Wikipedia as truth can be dangerous. One last question: Could you cite Wikipedia as a reliable resource in a college paper. I personally don't think so.

Kurt

After finding out that wikipedia could be edited by just anyone I think I have lost a lot fo faith in it. No matter how many people read and correct errors, there is no guarantee that all the rrors will be caught/fixed.

With that in mind using possibly incorrect info from wikipedia could definitely cause someone to fail a apaper or such if a prof. looked up the info on a reliable source!

I think that the question isn't really how much we can trust wikis, it's how much we can trust a large group of people to not give out false information purposefully. At this point it's more of a personal deicision as to whether you will trust the content or not. I tend to take a bit of a skeptical outlook on anything presented to me, regardless of the source. Because of this outlook I would say I am neither more nor less inclined to believe the information on the website, because it is still coming from people that I do not personally know, even if there are more or less of them.

I think that wikipedia is a really cool idea. I think that its a great way of testing out whether or not a communal environment would stay up to date. I wonder though how much work is involved in maintaining the site in the background?

I am really intrigued by what Wikipedia has done. Their content is derived by individuals from different social and economic backgrounds thus adding a new twist to who the "sender" is. I think the site is definitly a resource becuase they are conveying information to you. As far as if it is credible or not, I think their crediblity is alot higher than what is currently available in other outlets due to the number of people reading the information and thus monitoring it. Most importantly, they are able to make us critically think about the subject matter which I think is really important especially since we live in the media/information age.

I think Wikipedia is a very creative concept. However I would be somewhat cautious to the authenticity of the material. But just being able to add information in a realtime effect like that is defenitely a masterful innovation.

I think the idea of being able to edit the site yourself is very interesting and fun but like some of the other comments posted I would not trust the information on the site just because others can edit the information incorrectly.

One thing that hasn't been addressed so far is the potential for bias based on technological status. For example, if you are a citizen of Angola (which has recently (as of 2002) ended a 27-year civil war), you might have a different view on your history than someone in the US/Canada/UK/etc. sitting in front of a computer.

A majority of those who are writing articles for this site are way above the curve technologically. Only 1 in 160 people on the continent of Africa use the Internet, for example. So in what case is an outside observer adequately able to discuss issues of critical relevance to a country whose citizens don't have a representative voice in this online forum? Just a thought...

"We are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last 24 hours; we are not the best informed as to the events of the last 60 centuries."
Will Durant, modern American thinker

I've been to the wikipedia site a few times in the past, but I never really looked into how the content was added until this class. It's definitely a novel idea and can allow for changes, new additions, and updates to existing data to be made much easier than any typical format of web information. While the idea of allowing anyone to update or change anything is kind of sketchy, as long as the web masters of the site keep up with the logs, it should be a very useful site for information.

I'd use the Wikipedia as a source of information as for the most part it is fairly accurate. I'm not too keen on how ANYBODY can change the contents, but the webmasters seem to keep up on it.

I believe that open source ideas such as these are great beginnings to what the world wide web has to offer us into the future - where everyone can be their own editor and publisher at a certain cost. This cost is that of bias, misrepresentation, and conflict within the world of information. Although the Wikipedia webmasters do keep this in check for the most part, I would never use this site as more than an inside look at other people's personal opinions or to get ideas on how others view a certain subject matter. That being said, I believe the idea is great and there is definitly a future to many of these services.

The Wiki is a weird wonderful thing. It allows all kinds of information to be gathered without the actual gathering part. Should anyone feel the urge to post some bit of information then they can. But a question comes to my mind. If I post on the Wiki that I enjoy cheese puffs would that be removed? It would not be untruthful, or at least not easily disproved. Would the Wiki community become information Nazis, hence becoming their own enemies? I guess the point I'm trying to make is that something that's as open as the Wiki needs a babysitter. Fortunately there are enough people out there doing just that out the spare time of their own hearts.

I think the wiki can be useful and destructive. While allowing the information to be updated by the users will keep the most up to date information available, it can also have negative effects. There are two main problems I can think of. First, what if someone posts incorrect information. In class the professor proved that the information would be corrected within 24 hours. But what if I get to the information before they fix it? I think a good idea when using a source like this would be to check it a couple of days in a row before accepting it as true. The second problem I see has to do with the type of information posted. If someone feels strongly about a topic, such as politics, they will only post one side of the story. While all the facts may be true, they are not objective. I think that this technology would be better used as a coporate tool to be used by people trying to share information about research, clients, and profects.

I found this posted by a concern parent...this the fundamental thin about an Encyclopedia.

Wikipedia false encyclopedia..don’t used this articles as references for your post
I notice that you used Wikipedia as a source, that’s like using melting ice as paperholder.

Another example of antidemocracy is this site(http://www.jeffdoolittle.com/archives/000178.php) , where the owner(like thouthands other sites) feeds his site from wikipedia and then blocks anybody‘s critics against wikipedia… behind the scheme of the Wikithing there is money and fraud. They already began asking for 50 thouthands, soon will be millions. If I go to an Encyclopedia is not to edit what you are looking for, is to find it, because the basic fact that makes you look for it is “that I don’t know”. This is the whole point of the existence of an encyclopedia. If not…please don’t commit intellectual abuse to all the millions of children and students that just write Encyclopedia on their browser and find millions of sites posting the autopromoting web site Wilkepedia, they will believe is a true encyclopedia, and just copy, they don’t have time to waste as it happens with the small and repetitive group of people of the Wikithing fraudulently calling itself Encyclopedia…they are harming others…my child got and “F” on his project, because of this….It will be better if they call themselves just a “Project” or Wikichat, or Wikiforumpedia…but is fraud…big fraud, calling youself , encyclopedia…it doesn’t matter haw many small letters warnings you put at the bottom. The other thousands of money thirsty sites on the web that post Wikipedia “never finished and always changeable articles” on the web, do not care about who reads them. An the readers, mostly students, like my child, are looking for steady and verifiable information. Rules do not change every minute in a democracy, they are there for a long time period before they are changed. That is a democracy, free changeable things are describe as, variable, aperiodic, unstable, unpredictable, and are the characteristic of CAOS, nor Democracy. Of course fanatics have a way to block information against them. In the Theory of Systems, Wikipedia is a close system by all means, far from being open as they claim. But again is healthy for the net, not to classify them as an Encyclopedia, because they are not by all definitions.
Have a nice day..

I could nitpick about what this parent wrote and turn it into a humorous mockery of her. For instance, if this is just a cut and paste of the actual parent's post well I can go ahead and point out her spelling errors and grammar errors.

On the other hand, I will just go and try and break her article down.

Wikipedia false encyclopedia..don’t used this articles as references for your post

I notice that you used Wikipedia as a source, that’s like using melting ice as paperholder.

Did she just realize the fact that Wikipidia cannot guarantee being 100% accurate or even close to that due to being run by people who may or may not be experts in the field?

Wikipedia is a fantastic resource to get you off on the right foot due to being so large and vast. However, to rely on it as your only source would be ABSOLUTELY foolish. You can use it as a source if your other "official" sources actually prove the Wikipedia correct. In fact, one could even go ahead and use their new found knowledge to help steer Wikipedia in the right direction to help ensure other people get a truthful and valid resource.

Another example of antidemocracy is this site(http://www.jeffdoolittle.com/archives/000178.php) , where the owner(like thouthands other sites) feeds his site from wikipedia and then blocks anybody‘s critics against wikipedia… behind the scheme of the Wikithing there is money and fraud. They already began asking for 50 thouthands, soon will be millions.

I don't see how he is antidemocratic, because he basically says wikis are the way to go. She fails completely to provide any sort of example/evidence/proof that he is indeed antidemocratic. In fact, does it really matter to the user of wikipedia if some guy from some site is antidemocratic? Unless they run wikipedia, there would not be a reason for me to care about him, Jeff Doolittle. How does she know they block critics of wikipedia? Where is her proof? Maybe there simply are no real critics of wikipedia. After all, if all the critics are like this woman they would not even be worth "answering".

This woman has no clue how much money it would cost to run a site like Wikipedia, which must get pounded by tens of thousands of users a day. As one can see, she lacks the needed knowledge to blame Wikipedia of "money and fraud". On top of this, the Wiki runs NUMEROUS other wikis, such as wiktionary, wikiquote, wikibooks, etc. Hopefully this woman did not donate any many to the wiki, because she desperately needs to by herself a clue.

I wished there was a way for me to go back and edit my post, but here is one correction so far:

This is apart of the quote, which I made bold to separate quoting her from my own thoughts.

I notice that you used Wikipedia as a source, that’s like using melting ice as paperholder.