I have learned several things in reading about Wikipedia. I have learned that there are multiple volunteers that oversee the website to make sure that information is a correct as they can get it. I just assumed it was a bunch of doctors or very smart people that just put the information out there. I find it fascinating that anyone can edit Wikipedia at anytime. I find it even more fascinating that the volunteers can oversee those edits and make sure that only the most accurate information is posted.
I have also learned that it is a free site run off of donations and volunteer work. They only have ten employees and run such a successful website for educational purposes. As well as I learned that Wikipedia is not your end destination when looking up information. Wikipedia is not cited because there are so many known and unknown authors of the site; however, there are lots of references at the bottom of the page to help you move on to get to the end of your destination to do more research elsewhere.
I was very surprised to find out that in some schools and with some teacher Wikipedia is banned. I have heard of banning a lot of things but never an informational free website. Another thing that surprised me was that I didn’t realize it could be done in real time. Such as with the Virginia Tech shooting, the information provided could have saved some lives if a student were to come across it at the right moment.
My only question is why would Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia if he thought it was lacking in expertise? If he is one of the founders then he has the say so to fix the problem that he sees or branch out from Wikipedia to get credible information. Such as when he created Citizendium why didn’t he just stay with Wikipedia and use the fame from it to help people find more expertise in their information. Instead of leaving why not just fix the problem?
Related Material:
References :
Crovitz, D., & Smoot, S. (2000). Wikipedia:friend, not foe. 1-97. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/learning/teachers/archival/EnglishJournalArticle2.pdf
Johnson, C. (2009, February 11). The good and the bad of wikipedia. Sunday Morning, Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/10/sunday/main2244008.shtml
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