Research in progress

Wikipedia’s credibility based on community and rules: Is Wikipedia creditable?


Scholarly piece talking about administration and vandalism

Piece talking about Wikipedia as a creditable source to quote

Piece talking about Wikipedia’s rules

Piece talking about Wikipedia’s language

Articles with people’s ideas about Wikipedia’s credibility

Current criticism articles on Wikipedia’s credibility



Computers and composition

Science direct

Google scholar

Wikipedia: The New Portal of knowledge. (Reading: Bruns ch. 5 and 6)

Image found at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge_triangle

Bruns does an excellent job explaining and summarizing how Wikipedia works in chapter 5 and 6. While doing my experiment as a Wikipedia editor, I have spent my whole weekend trying to figure it out. I kept browsing through different articles in Wikipedia, all explaining its rules and administrations. I’ve edited three articles, and my boyfriend has created an article regarding to his PhD researches in math. It was interesting to see everything being deleted after one hour. However, I was still investigating to see if my boyfriend’s article would be restored back, since he had included creditable information with references. As a matter of fact, just after reading about the tools in which they use to control Wikipedia, I went back to check if his article was deleted for sure, and his article was back. Seeing his enthusiasm and drive to edit more articles and add more information to his article, I started pondering on Wikipedia’s success. Indeed, as Bruns points in chapter five, “common property” and “individual reward” are the most important and the funding principles of Wikipedia. By feeling as if he was rewarded, my boyfriend wanted to collaborate even more to Wikipedia.

image found at:http://encefalus.com/general/pimps-of-knowledge-free-resources-for-all/

Certainly, this is how people feel when they are able to publish an article that will stay, even if it will always be changing with additional information. When Bruns talks about all methods used to control Wikipedia, I understood that even though everybody can change Wikipedia’s articles, there are ways of proving that the articles are creditable. Because of Wikipedia criticism, three important policies were created: Neutral Point of View, verifiability, and no original research. Even though through these principles, Wikipedia can be seen as a creditable source, a lot of its critics are concerned with the credibility of the cited sources that are presented. Even though there are so many critics of Wikipedia, they are failing to see that it is collaborating not only to society evolvement , but as Bruns points “ Wikipedia can be seen as an important contributor to the democratization of knowledge creation and representation, undermining the role of traditional encyclopedic and similar publications in determining the canon of high culture and accepted knowledge” ( 123).
 

Image found at:http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/sw/wikipedia/graph.png

There are a lot of outside websites that cannot keep up with Wikipedia exactly because they restrict collaboration to only those who are knowledgeable. However, the creators of these websites fail in understanding that as long as there is ethics, everyone can collaborate to knowledge development. Wikipedia has an administration, and people who have mastered the website are on top of this administration, making sure that all articles are creditable and under the basic policies required. Wikipedia is gradually evolving because everyone is collaborating not only adding knowledge, but working on policies, and helping each other giving feedbacks and deciding how to edit articles in the community talks. As Bruns points in chapter 6, “a key requirement of the Produsage framework under which the site operates is that participants do not refrain from critiquing their peers’ contributions in deference to the apparent or real credentials of others”( 149). Wikipedia is working because of its “heterarchical adhocracies of Produsage communities” (143). Because no contributor is considered better than the other, the whole community is able to succeed while producing and using the knowledge they see in the articles. Even though there is nobody ruling over the information, there is a system of “checks and balances” (151) in which articles are being improved, or deleted, if proven to have no quality and verifiability.

Wikipedia Research Topics

After researching Wikipedia’s policies, experiencing it as an “editor”, and reading chapter 6 of Bruns’ Blogs Wikipedia, second Life, and Beyond, I have decided to explore three questions as possible topics of my research paper. First, I would like to investigate Wikipedia’s system as an adhocracy where individuals within the community have the same power to create, edit, and add information to the articles in order to help improve knowledge in their community. In addition, I would like to research the effects of collaborative work in Wikipedia society today. By focusing on their administration, language, policies, and discussion boards, I will reflect about society’s evolvement in our current information age. Another topic I would like to explore is the controversies around credibility of Wikipedia’s articles, and the spread of knowledge through collaborative work. I would like to reflect on Wikipedia’s positive and negative effects in society, comparing Wikipedia with traditional Encyclopedias such as Britannica. The third topic I would like to investigate is: What is the direction of consumption and production of information in the future? As Wikipedia’s community grows, more information is spreading quickly. Where is this project going to end up in the near future where everyone is collaborating to improve the Website?
Click here to watch a movie about students perceptions of Wikipedia.

I really enjoy the new song Fireflyes from Owl City because it is so positive and it makes me feel in a fantastic creative world of dreams where everything is possible. I think that band is very positive and their messages are uplifting.

Review on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia And Creditable Knowledge

As an immigrant academic, with so many projects to do and time passing by fast, usually, I find myself searching the internet for background information on my reading assignments: Information that ranges from summaries, context, bibliographies, history, etc. I use Google as a tool to search for content about my school work. It helps me to understand and set a context for my academic readings. The quality of information I can gather from Google searching, which in a way or another always leads me to Wikipedia, is debated among academics and professors. There has been a lot of criticism about the credibility of the information added in Wikipedia. Because of this controversy and disapproval from my professors, I’ve tried my best to stay away from Wikipedia when it comes to academic reading assignments. However, I often find myself using Wikipedia to find out about non academic research for general knowledge. Wikipedia is a free and fast place to learn about everything without having to read a whole book: People can decide what they want to read or not. I can also participate as an “editor” adding information to its articles. Even with all this controversy around credibility, and quality content, I think that as long as I am critical of what I am reading, I will be able to judge and add what is creditable to my knowledge when it comes to everyday life. In this review, I am going to conduct experiments as an “editor”, learn about Wikipedia’s administration and rules, and draw a conclusion towards its credibility.

Learn more about using Wikipedia for academic research in this YouTube movie

Wikipedia As Writing Space and Writing Tool

Image found at: nostarch.com/wikipedia_big.htm

By entering the About Wikipedia icon in the Wikipedia website, there is a Wikipedia article called encyclopedia article which explains: “Wikipedia's 15 million articles (3.2 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site.” As a result, Wikipedia can be seen as an outcome of community volunteered work where people from everywhere, with any background work together writing and editing their output. In this same article, there is an information chart that is updated almost every day describing that Wikipedia is running Media Wiki version 1.16 alpha-wmf(r59859) which is a software that allows people to write articles collaborating with each other editing their articles regularly. This informational chart also shows that on March 8th Wikipedia has 3,215,939 articles and 19,637,284 pages in total. There have been 372,077,537 edits; there are 841,568 uploaded files, and 11,843,064 registered users including 1,720 administrators. Below the information chart, there is an “update” icon where the reader and/or collaborator can click and it instantly shows the updated information. This icon gives us updated information on how many edits there have been. A couple of seconds after I’ve read this information, I pressed the update button to find that there were 848 more edits made to Wikipedia, and 71 new registered users in the time that took to reload the page. The conclusion I draw from that is that Wikipedia is a writing space where a lot of its readers have active roles as participants helping to improve the information that is already there. As Bruns points out in the introdution of his book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond From Production to Produsage, “the term 'production' is no longer accurate” to explain what Wikipedia is since the readers of Wikipedia are also engaged in the act of writing and “editing” their own “product” when they add their knowledge to the website. Because Wikipedia’s articles have been spreading in a fast pace since it has been created, it is one of the most visited websites, and it has been recognized, used, and created by communities. Therefore, Wikipedia is not only a writing space improved by participants, but it is also a writing tool where every reader is able to stop their reading at any time and edit any content of articles by erasing, adding, or modifying ideas that already exist in the article being read. It provides a built in text editor where you can edit the content of any article.

Wikipedia As A System

Image found at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia-servers-2009-04-05.svg

As an experiment, I signed up to Wikipedia, and saw that there are policies about neutrality, guidelines for writing style, and social behavioral ethics in which an editor should follow to keep his or her article or statements from being deleted or modified. In Wikipedia: Simplified Rule Set, there is a statement that says “there is no official structuring policing the quality of articles” However, a vandalized article can be modified within hours since there are a lot of contributors all helping to improve the website. I’ve also noticed that I could also add any information to the Rule Set, which made me wonder about the organization of this community. As Wikipedia is considered a “continuous, endless process” How can volunteers make sure that everything is being edited according to the policies made by community? To what extent are these policies enforced?

So, I continued my experiment by editing the existing Wikipedia article on the book The Color Purple. I added some information to this website without including any reference. As a result, one hour and thirty-five minutes later, someone else had deleted my comment from the page. Therefore, I concluded that Wikipedia is a system that is taken seriously by its collaborators who are all forced to follow its policies in order to keep their articles as part of this online encyclopedia.

Image found at: richardkaufman.org/causality/

Even though everyone can collaborate to Wikipedia without having to identify themselves—being recognized only by their IP addresses-- the system within this writing space reinforces its policies with quick updates made by volunteers. Not only the active reader can collaborate by correcting, or adding information to the articles, but also the editors who have a screen name. The “administrators”—the most dedicated Wikipedia editors who are identified by a screen name—are chosen to keep order by protecting articles, blocking ID’s of vandals, and deleting the articles that are not considered good enough. There are also the “bureaucrats” who can choose the administrators, and the “developers” who can make changes to the Wiki software. These Wikipedia organizers all work voluntarily for the website.

Image found at: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/0/0b/20080831012910!Wikipedia_World_Developer_Champion.png

I come to conclude that Wikipedia is a successful system in which people are able to acquire knowledge for free, and to add their outputs to this collection of knowledge that is always developing. The Wikipedia system is not only evolving our community with collaboration, it is preparing the world for a bigger change where people will have opportunity to learn faster and freely by controlling their own education, and actively participating--sometimes playing the role of instructors, sometimes playing the role of learners.

Image found at: http://abeautifulwww.com/2007/10/02/visualizing-science-tech-activity-in-wikipedia/

Wanna know more about hypertext as a writing tool and a writing space? Click here. The authors of this paper provide a lot of information on challenges that websites such as Wikipedia bring to our society. Also, they introduce Novelle as a different type of writing space and writing tool.

March 4th Protest- Let Our Voice Be Heard!

image found at: www.sacbee.com/.../governor-2010/

As a full student at SJSU, being the mother of a six-years-old who attends first grade in a public school, and the sister of two younger girls who are also finishing their studies at SJSU and SFSU, I feel the need to talk on what has just happened today. For the first time, a lot of students and faculty of public education in California have met in front of the City Hall protesting to raise public awareness about how important it is to support our public education! Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed for the year of 2010/11 a restoration of $305 million dollars to CSU. However, this is still a proposal. As everyone knows, a country without education will only decay. Higher education should be the priority to lead to not only a better economy, but a better society. It is crucial that we all start taking an active role towards this issue. Let our voice be heard!

Quickipedia or Weakipedia?

I am going to do my review on Wikipedia.

I've always been skeptical of using Wikipedia because I think it is not a good place for reliable information. Because everyone can edit its articles, It can be a commonplace for vandalism, and mislead ideas. Even though I think it is not a creditable source, I think it is awesome that information is being exchanged by people from everywhere. For being one of the most visited and scrapped informational search engine, Wikipedia has a worldwide influence. I think that It would be good opportunity for me to learn more about this controversial website, and write a review on it.

Generation Now!

Nowadays, knowledge is spreading quickly over the internet. As Black Eyed Peas sing, “we are the generation now!” Via computer, anything is possible and everything is happening in a faster pace. I use my computer for practically anything. When I am writing in English, I usually use Microsoft Word to correct my poems, letters, or school work related. While surfing the web, I use Google to search about anything. Google is my favorite writing space, since I can find out about anything in with just a click. As soon as I type what I am looking for, and search, all types of writing spaces pop up. Of course, as a critical reader, I will carefully choose whatever I want to read about. From Google, I can come across so many other writing spaces as blogs, YouTube movies, Amazon.com reviews, Wikipedia, full text books, and the list goes on… Even though I am reluctant to use Wikipedia, I think it is very interesting the way everybody can participate sharing their knowledge. Wikipedia is defined as an “online encyclopedia” where readers, can also become writers and participate in a large community of editors, all exchanging information while the work is in process. I think Wikipedia is a very good example of electronic writing space that is spreading knowledge all over the globe. As Google, Wikipedia has become very popular. Because everyone can write about any topic, sometimes people may think it is not a creditable source. However, by reading each person’s ideas on certain topic, gives the reader a much broader idea about the topic searched. Another electronic writing space that I use very seldom is Face book. I post pictures and write private messages to my family members and friends from Brazil. At first, Face book has started as a social network among college student, but now, it is open to everybody across the globe. Now that my family and friends can connect with me through Face book, I am using it as a device to reconnect with my long lost friends, and to keep in touch to my family, and friends. Internet has definitely given me much more access to all kinds of writing spaces—informational, or social network—in a faster pace.

I think this song by Black Eyed Peas is a perfect example of our generation now:

Generation Now

We are the now generation

We are the generation now

This is the now generation

This is the generation now

I want money

I want it want it want it

Fast internet

Stay connected in a jet

Wi-fi, podcast

Blasting out an SMS

Text me and I text you back

Check me on the iChat

I’m all about that h t t p

You’re a PC I’m a Mac

I want it..

Myspace in your space

Facebook is a new place

Dip divin’ socializin’

I’ll be out in cyber space

Google is my professor

Wikipedia checker

Checkin my account

Loggin in and loggin out

Baby I want it..

Now!

This is the now generation

This is the generation now

We are the now generation

I want I want I want it now

I want the cold hard cash

I want I want I want it now

And I just can’t wait

I need it immediately

And I just can’t wait

I want it immediately

Cause time can’t wait and

I sure can’t wait

I ain’t got no patience

I sure can’t wait

We are the now generation

We are the generation now

This is the now generation

This is the generation now

I want money

I want cold hard cash

I’ll take your dollar and your euro

And you’ll have a blast

So take your day and your credit

And stick it up your ass

And do it now!

I want it now!

Big money, give me mo’ money

[Yeah I want it now!]

I need cas.. oh I need it bad

[I want it now!]

Quick in a hurry

Like your name is Flash

[I want it now!]

You make me wait?

And Im’a whip your ass

[I want it now!]

I want it now baby!

[Now!]

I want it

[Now!]

I want it

[Now!]

Now!

Fast, rapido

Really quick like torpedo

Need for speed is my credo

You need to feed this negrito

Sender, buyer, brother boat

Rapid like a thunder bolt

Activated rock the boat

Just ask Barack who brought the hope

To Now!

It was a now generation

And I just can’t wait

I need it immediately

And I Just can’t wait

I want it immediately

Cause if time can’t wait then

I sure can’t wait

I ain’t got no patience

No I just can’t wait

Not again

Expediate

No time for procrastination

Expediate

Improve my sensation