Title: “Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?”
Author: Brock Read
The article “Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?” is a very informative article that really opened my eyes to the Wikipedia world. It tells how Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can edit who registers to the site. The article gives examples of interesting past events of Wikipedia. The first example was a professor who tried to edit the website by putting 13 errors into various places throughout the website. Within a few hours the Wikipedians caught the errors and fixed them. This really changed the opinion of the professor who attempted to make a mockery of the website. On the other hand the next example was of a longtime journalist who noticed an entry someone wrote claiming that he was involved in the Kennedy assassinations. The journalist was outraged and claimed none of this was true. The bad part was that it was on the site for about four months before he was the one that caught it and edited it. This diminished his reputation and he was very outraged. Another graduate student claims that it really depends on what topics people are writing about on the website because it is much easier to lie about a past history even that no one is very familiar with compared to an article about selenium or some other scientific topic.
The article is great in informing the average person of the dangers of using Wikipedia for anything more than a quick answer. I can honestly say before too long I was not aware that anyone could post anything they want on the website. I do agree with the idea of Mr. Sanger who proposed an idea of an “alternate version of Wikipedia that lets an editorial panel of experts put articles through a form of peer review before certifying them as worthy of public view”. This would really improve the validity of the website an also allow for a great online source of information. Personally I like Wikipedia very much and I think it would be great if the site could become more valid.
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