Mel’s post 2

Hey guys, with the slide show thing that we have to make to present. Do you know when we start it? I can make it and i’ll post the password and stuff. When were almost done with these blogs we can add the info we want to the slide show.

Mel’s post

These are just my thoughts on wikipedia, that i don’t think have been said.

As many people can publish/post information on wikipedia, it may be more up to date then a text book.

Also if someone sees that information posted is wrong anyone can edit it to fix it or anyone can add more information if there was more to be added. This makes wikipedia an up to date source for people viewing information on the website.

Michael Post 6

Wikipedia are thinking about restricting editing on articles to help improve the accuracy

http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2009/01/26/wikipedia-tightening-editing/

Wikipedia – tightening editing

It is not much of a surprise that Wikipedia deals with consistent concerns about accuracy. Openness does not change humanity, but it does reveal its breadth. Those who have a penchant for destruction find openness as appealing as those who have a desire for creating something of value. To combat accuracy concerns, Wikipedia is considering restrictions on editing. Perhaps the complexity and challenges of one encyclopedia that incorporates all information could be overcome by smaller individual wikis under the care of networks and communities that have a vested interest. There is no reason why things need to be under one banner and one website. I almost always access Wikipedia through Google. The value is in the search, not the location.

Michael Post 5

I found a little forum on how to edit Wikipedia articles. People discuss ways in which they edit articles in Wikipedia. It shows us that many people search through wikipedia articles and fix things that they believe are wrong. But some people have found that once they edit the article the author just changes it back.

Some one states

” Any major changes i ever make (and in fields i actually know something about) invariably get edited back by someone else anyway, so ive pretty much given up on trying to add anything. The whole edit process has become way too bureaucratic. You can barely change a sentences syntax without spawning a page full of discussion. “

“http://digg.com/tech_news/The_Right_Way_To_Fix_Inaccurate_Wikipedia_Articles?FC=PRCP1″

Michael Post 4

I found a article campagining againts wikipedia because of the inacurices and biased writing.

You can find the article at-

http://conovermedia.blogspot.com/2006/03/campaign-against-wikipedia.html

The campaign against Wikipedia

(Editor’s note: This post began as a news item at Xark!, but grew into a stand-alone essay.)

I first noticed this back in February while speaking about Web trends to a Public Relations/Business Communications class at a local college. When I asked about Wikipedia, everyone who spoke expressed a clear message: Wikipedia, to them, was not so much a resource as it was a threat.

Multiple students reported they had been told by their instructors not to use it — ever*. Some spoke of professors who routinely threatened to punish anyone caught using it. And even my host allowed that her attitude toward the online encyclopedia was less than charitable.

Last night, speaking to a group of high-school journalists, I got similar responses. In these instances, I detect not only scholarly skepticism, but something more. Something bordering on scorn.

Like the college students from last month, these high schoolers knew that anybody could edit Wikipedia, though none of them expressed any understanding about how the system functioned, what a wiki is, or how a community of editors becomes a self-correcting entity, etc.

It’s a disconnect. I see Wikipedia as a way of thinking about information and virtual community. They see it as a free-for-all. Their teachers see it as anarchy.

I call this a backlash. Wikipedia came out of nowhere, fast, to become the largest encyclopedia in history. Some academics, who as a group are used to controlling such things, were horrified by the wiki concept — and financially threatened by the open-source, free-info, non-profit model that keeps Wikipedia a living, growing document. Rather than checking it out further, a segment of academia appears to have united against it.

From a PR standpoint, the big blow came in December when John Seigenthaler wrote a widely publicized piece citing inaccuracies in a Wikipedia article on his life.The founding editorial director of USA Today called Wikipedia “a flawed and irresponsible research tool” in a column that reflected the attitude I’ve noticed among some academics — that whatever else Wikipedia may be, it also is a sandbox for malcontents, anarchists and children who run around with scissors. In other words: Not For Serious Adults.

In the wake of the Seigenthaler column, big-name bloggers and technorati, including Dave Winer and Adam Curry, came out with their own criticisms. Making matters worse, Wikipedia founder (or, as the case may be, co-founder) Jimmy Wales got “caught” editing his Wikipedia bio and taking out references to his early collaborators.

Wikipedians got their say in the ensuing coverage, but from an outsider’s perspective, it seemed like the Wikimedia Foundation — a concept I dearly love — was suddenly in public-relations damage control mode.

Here’s my take:

The idea that Wikipedia is less accurate because it doesn’t have top-down editorial control is, itself, inaccurate. A better question would be, When do we know it to be accurate? The whole concept of a collaborative information project is based on the idea that community collaboration will identify and correct errors — in public. Traditional media also involves editing and fact-checking, but it does so before publication and without transparency. Yet traditional media routinely stumble when it comes to correcting the errors that slip past those all-too-human pre-pub controls.

“Does Wikipedia have errors?” isn’t a meaningful question, but “what errors will an individual Wikipedia entry contain in the snapshot of time that I see when I call up the entry?” is a question that actually takes us somewhere.

Wikipedia asks that we correct the errors we see — and, unlike the popular stereotype of Wikipedia as an irresponsible Wild West of disinformation — Wikipedia as a process includes multiple feedback loops that address vandalism, inaccuracies, biased writing, etc. It assumes that people are adults.

The question, then, is not whether Wikipedia has editorial quality controls (it does), but whether those controls work fast enough.

That’s an open-ended question (fast enough compared to what?), but I contend that a wiki-model encyclopedia will probably correct its errors far faster than a proprietary encyclopedia. My reasoning? Top-down, for-profit editoral control pays a few people to ride herd on a large range. It cannot mobilize as many corrective resources, as quickly, as the Wikipedia community can.

Plus, is Wikipedia really inaccurate? Again, accurate compared to what?

Nature decided to compare Wikipedia to Britannica, considered the Gold Standard of traditional enclopedias. Its finding? On a survey of 42 science articles, Britannica was more accurate.

But how much more accurate? Not much. The Nature study found an average of four errors in its Wikipedia entries… compared to three errors, on average, in a Britannica entry.

The debate goes back and forth, with some Wikipedians contending that the average Wikipedia entry is 2.6 times longer than the average Britannica entry, then doing the math to produce a lower error rate. Yada yada yada. I don’t care. Framing this as a competition between Wikipedia and Britannica misses the point.

The more telling comparison is between Wikipedia and Google, because when you consider how I’ve come to use Wikipedia, it’s as an alternative to general web search engines. Wikipedia is just as fast, far more relevant and much more accurate in the information it returns. Viewed as a form of curated search, Wikipedia looks a lot less threatening.

In this sense, Wikipedia is a through-point, not a destination. And, ironically, this was exactly how my teachers told me I was supposed to use an encyclopedia Back In The Day.

Not only are we comparing Wikipedia to the wrong standard and failing to understand it as a process and a community, we’re also missing the most valuable points of the accuracy debate by taking Wikipedia out of its natural context: the larger Web. Dave Winer has been cited by Wiki-haters for his criticisms, but that’s far from the complete picture. Consider this Scripting News post from December, in which Winer addresses the Siegenthaler case and the larger ethical question of who-should-edit-what (emphasis added):

Ross Mayfield sees the pros and cons of editing your bio page on Wikipedia. Here’s my take on it. No, you must not edit your bio page, or any page about a topic in which you have an interest. It’s impossible to disclose that interest, so the poor reader has no idea how to credit what’s on the page. This is the weakness of Wikipedia, in fact of all wiki. But his point about the knowledge you have about yourself is an important one. Imho, the obvious answer is that your page, on your site, edited only by you, should be linked to from the equivalent Wikipedia page, in a consistent and prominent way. Your review of a page about something you’re involved in is important, but it must be clear to the reader that they are reading something that’s interested. Ultimately, this combination of wiki and blogging is going to be the answer. It’s how Jimmy Wales will be able to tell us he doesn’t think the stuff on his Bomis site was porn and how his Ferrari cost less than most SUVs, and how Adam Curry can tell you all about himself and edit everyone else out. Now the question is, who is qualified to edit the Wikipedia page?

That’s a great question, with multiple possible “correct” answers. But Dave Winer’s perspective demonstrates how wholistic thinking trumps simplistic, out-of-context analysis. Lets see Wikipedia for what it is, what it can be, how it fits into its environment, and encourage people to use it properly.

Exactly. So what if I can’t cite Wikipedia the same way I would a static source? It’s still immensely valuable to me.

Should we take what we find at Wikipedia at face value? No. Duh. But let’s restate the question: Should we take ANY information we find, online or otherwise, at face value? Answers, please, on a post card.

Ultimately, the Wikipedia controversy, if it can be called that, is about how we feel about control. I know where I come down on that subject, and it’s right where Jimmy Wales was when he spoke to USA Today in December: “‘Any place where the general public is allowed to freely express their opinion without having any sort of prior approval from authority — it is dangerous,’ Wales says. ‘Free speech is dangerous. But it’s also incredibly powerful and useful.’”

Amen.

Michael Post 3

I found a site with examples of where wikipedia is bias. The site contains 154 examples at :

http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia

For example :

1. Wikipedia clearly adds a “Controversies” sections to their article for the “Presidency of George W. Bush”^[267] but not to their article on the “Presidency of Barack Obama”^[268]

Cam’s Fifth Post

Here is the rules/guidlines/style in which wikipedia require authors to post their infomration.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style

The Manual of Style, often abbreviated MoS, is a style guide for Wikipedia articles. This article contains basic principles. The menu to the right contains links to Manual of Style articles that explore topics in detail. Another way to access the Manual of Style is through Wikipedia:Editor’s index to Wikipedia. Finally, you can search the Wikipedia namespace by typing “wp:” followed by your search term in the “search” box to the left of this screen.

If the Manual of Style does not specify a preferred usage, discuss your issues on the talk page of this article.

Contents

[hide]

CLICK ON THE FIRST LINK FOR MORE INFO

Cam

Quite simply i just went on the wikipedia home page and clicked on the about me link.

check it out. Just some background information that will be good to know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About

Wikipedia (pronounced /ˌwiːkiˈpiːdiə/ or /ˌwɪkəˈpiːdiə/) is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project. The name “Wikipedia” is a portmanteau (a combination of portions of two words and their meanings) of the words wiki (a type of collaborative Web site) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia’s articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.

Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world; anyone can edit it. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites, attracting at least 684 million visitors yearly by 2008. There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on more than 10,000,000 articles in more than 260 languages. As of today, there are 2,796,166 articles in English. Every day, hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world collectively make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to augment the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia. (See also: Wikipedia:Statistics).

Visitors do not need specialized qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge. This means that people of all ages and cultural and social backgrounds can write Wikipedia articles. Most of the articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references, or citations, as long as they do so within Wikipedia’s editing policies and to an appropriate standard. Substandard or disputed information is subject to removal. Users need not worry about accidentally damaging Wikipedia when adding or improving information, as other editors are always around to advise or correct obvious errors, and Wikipedia’s software is carefully designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes.

Because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation that has been recently added and not yet removed (see Researching with Wikipedia for more details). However, unlike a paper reference source, Wikipedia is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes, or hours, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias.

Cams third post

Just having a look at youtube videos related to wikipedia.

this one is more about google but the concepts it is talking about are the same. It does mention wikipedia a few times but if you were to sustitute toe word google with wikipedia the point of the video would not change.

basically its says that you need to back up information found on google or wikipedia (i.e the open internet) with reliable sources.

here it is

It also relates in to schools and education.

Go to about 6 minutes and up and the video talks about information and schools more.

Mel’s post 1 and 2 – week 3

I found a blog made by another person on this site  about wikipedia, I found it the other day:  http://custardblog.wordpress.com/2008/02/23/the-wikipedia-worry/

Its just a post about their thoughts on this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7130325.stm

So i’ve combined my blogs and wrote about both.

The article is about how the founder of wikipedia believes that teachers who have refused to allow students to access are “bad educators”. If you say to a student, you can’t use wikipedia for a project, they’re going to use it anyway. However, the founder of wikipedia also stated that the information collected from wikipedia should be used as a “stepping stone” and that students who just copy straight from wikipedia “deserve a F”, also that some information is inaccurate. Because of some inaccuracies wikipedia should only be used as a stepping stone. I think this is true, as anyone can post on wikipedia, the information maybe incorrect. As the site is not monitored by experts, anything can be posted, someone can post something about spider monkeys and say they’re little furry creatures with big ears, that can shoot webs out of their wrists (i know no one will ever believe that, but still it supports my argument! ) , If a student only used wikipedia as a reference and nothing else than they may fail (especially if they used my example).  However I dont think it should be banned from schools, students need all the resources they can get to help them find an answer to a question, not all information on wikipedia is wrong, some of it is reliable. The people who write on wikipedia use references, which are the end of the post. If the references that they used are reliable, then its likely that what they have posted is correct, it just may be a little biased. I think it should be a tool to help students gain a greater understanding of what they are looking for on wikipedia.

The person who wrote the blog believes that students have not been taught proper research skills, and thats why students just use wikipedia.Also restricting students use of a source is counterproductive. This blog outlines the strengths and weaknesses of wikipedia. Such as wikipedia is a good starting place for students to understand the topic. They have also stated that all sources such as wikipedia and text books should backed up with other evidence, so if a student got some information about one topic on wikipedia, they should go to another source and compare that information with a text book or another website, and its up to the student to decide whether or not to use that information they have collected or read off wikipedia. – That is to analyse and determine whether or not that information is correct or not.

Also the nature of the text written in wikipedia is easy for anyone to understand which makes it a highly accessible resource for students to use. This is an advantage as it makes a difficult topic being studied easier to understand. However, this is also a weakness as it’s easy to understand, students take advantage of this and just copy and paste that information into their work, without checking the information they’ve copied is correct.

From Melanie