In “Wikipedia is an Important Source of Information,” the author Craig Belanger contends that Wikipedia is an innovative and appropriate way to access information. By stating the exact number of the whole content of Wikipedia, Belanger emphasizes the continuing growth of Wikipedia and importance of the new way of thinking the site has provided. The author praises the exclusive driving force of Wikipedia, the Web 2.0 service, which allows all users to create and share their information. The author defends the common criticism about the credibility of Wikipedia and contrasts Wikipedia with the encyclopedia to underline the better qualities of Wikipedia. From my perspective, this new set of encyclopedia has its advantages which are fast and free
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The fundamental reason is because anyone can post information. People who were not officially educated to certain fields can still write about them and get away with it because there is no limitation. Proponents of Wikipedia try to refute this claim by saying that Wikipedia has administrators and users who review what is uploaded on the sites and take care of wrong information by editing or erasing it. However, there are so many flaws in this review process. The problem with users reviewing is that the proportion of evaluating differs by the popularity of subject. Well-known topics, like science or social subjects, are reviewed and edited by a lot of people so it might have some credibility, but unpopular matters, like sleeping patterns of an ant-eater, will have less people reviewing the works or even will stay untouched. People who look for unpopular subjects will possibly find inaccurate information. Moreover, since there are approximately 2000 newly added posts per day, it is too much for the small group of administrators to check everything. To give evidence of the incapability of administrators, according to Harvard College, a student who was making a report on the credibility of Wikipedia posted a fake profile of him, stating that he is the mayor of a small town in China. Four years later, he checked Wikipedia and that profile still remained. In addition, the publication “the New Yorker” revealed that an …show more content…
Partial articles are especially a problem with corporation related topics. It has been found out that a lot of unsatisfied employees exaggerate the negative aspects about their jobs in Wikipedia which confuses the readers with one-sided information. For example, Forbes magazine located a complete criticism on McDonalds by an employee who works there. Accordingly, an article about Wal-Mart heavily scolded the company in general. In addition, the real problem is that these prejudiced facts are not limited only to corporation topics. Since anyone can post articles, people who have different beliefs about politics, religion, or science theories, intentionally or unintentionally, can write about the same subject differently. Furthermore, since users can comment their opinions under posts, readers are able to look at many different opinions about a topic. Users’ various opinions can introduce readers to different view, but this is not a appropriate feature of an “Encyclopedia,” where there should only be neutral facts. These personal view will easily lead to biased interpretation according to the users’
The fundamental reason is because anyone can post information. People who were not officially educated to certain fields can still write about them and get away with it because there is no limitation. Proponents of Wikipedia try to refute this claim by saying that Wikipedia has administrators and users who review what is uploaded on the sites and take care of wrong information by editing or erasing it. However, there are so many flaws in this review process. The problem with users reviewing is that the proportion of evaluating differs by the popularity of subject. Well-known topics, like science or social subjects, are reviewed and edited by a lot of people so it might have some credibility, but unpopular matters, like sleeping patterns of an ant-eater, will have less people reviewing the works or even will stay untouched. People who look for unpopular subjects will possibly find inaccurate information. Moreover, since there are approximately 2000 newly added posts per day, it is too much for the small group of administrators to check everything. To give evidence of the incapability of administrators, according to Harvard College, a student who was making a report on the credibility of Wikipedia posted a fake profile of him, stating that he is the mayor of a small town in China. Four years later, he checked Wikipedia and that profile still remained. In addition, the publication “the New Yorker” revealed that an …show more content…
Partial articles are especially a problem with corporation related topics. It has been found out that a lot of unsatisfied employees exaggerate the negative aspects about their jobs in Wikipedia which confuses the readers with one-sided information. For example, Forbes magazine located a complete criticism on McDonalds by an employee who works there. Accordingly, an article about Wal-Mart heavily scolded the company in general. In addition, the real problem is that these prejudiced facts are not limited only to corporation topics. Since anyone can post articles, people who have different beliefs about politics, religion, or science theories, intentionally or unintentionally, can write about the same subject differently. Furthermore, since users can comment their opinions under posts, readers are able to look at many different opinions about a topic. Users’ various opinions can introduce readers to different view, but this is not a appropriate feature of an “Encyclopedia,” where there should only be neutral facts. These personal view will easily lead to biased interpretation according to the users’