Wikipedia is a well-known database of information on topics that
vary from history to current events. Although Wikipedia is very well known, it’s
sources are not always trust worthy. Because so many people have access to
Wikipedia, the edits that are made on some of the pages may not be correct.
Wikipedia claims to be an online encyclopedia, but with random people adding
facts to their pages, it is hard for users to trust this information.
Essentially, yes, there is a team of people who try to keep track of the edits
and make sure that they are true. But with so many users and changes, it is
hard for them to keep track of everything. I believe that Corbett, Eberly and
Lazarre would all agree that Wikipedia could be the ultimate platform for
citizen critics seeing as anyone can edit articles. Wikipedia claims they have
editors with diverse backgrounds, but how can we, as users, know if that it
true or not. Another interesting fact about Wikipedia is the way the overall
website is organized. While there is a search box, the home page gives the
viewer many articles to choose from to begin their searches.
Wikipedia
does state on their “About Wikipedia” page, “Wikipedia
is written
collaboratively by largely anonymous Internet volunteers who write without pay. Anyone with Internet access can write
and make changes to Wikipedia articles, except in limited cases where editing is restricted to prevent disruption or vandalism. Users
can contribute anonymously,
under a pseudonym, or, if they choose to, with their real identity.”
This is what makes users skeptical of using information off their site.
After looking through a bunch of Wikipedia articles on the “Did
you know…” page, I came across one about Dascha Polanco, an actress from Orange
Is The New Black, and found her background story very interesting. The
difficult part of this article was that there were a lot of articles from news
sites, but most were in Spanish, thus I couldn’t understand if these facts were
true or not. There was also some articles from bigger named sites, such as NBC.
While looking through those, I found that all the information on her page
seemed true. Some of the sources are from smaller news sites, and while I don’t
think that makes them “unreliable” it does make me question them a tad.
Of the sources I checked out, all agreed with the fact that she
is from the Dominican and raised in Brooklyn and Miami. All the articles also
stated that this job on OITNB was her first acting job. Lastly, they all also confirm
that she was working to become a nurse after college. I do think this
information is generally reliable, but with some of the articles being in Spanish,
I could not confirm those. There was not much detail on her page, seeing as she just became
famous, but of the information provided it all seemed to be true to her life. This
is just one example of Wikipedia being correct. There are surely many examples
of Wikipedia having incorrect information on it, I was just lucky enough to
pick something that was all true.
Cites:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dascha_Polanco
Corbett, Edward P.J., and Rosa A. Eberly. “Becoming a Citizen Critic: Where Rhetoric Meets the Road.” The Elements of Reading. 121-138. Web.
No comments:
Post a Comment