BCeba002

IDH 1002 - French Revolution

Week 6 - Discussion: Thinking about Wikipedia

1. What do you think of Wikipedia's definition of "neutrality"?
   • I think Wikipedia has a fair definition of "neutrality" because an encyclopedia's main task is to provide information of a topic in a manner that is free from bias. I think that by establishing the definition of neutrality Wikipedia reminds their editors that they are writing for an encyclopedia (regardless that it is free and editable by anyone). Writing an encyclopedia requires that editors attempt to refrain from inserting personal bias because it is supposed to provide accurate information and that is not done when personal bias occurs in the article. Additionally, by striving to represent fair and proportionate information Wikipedia is able to gain credibility and provide a significant contributions to all topics.
2. What are the impacts and limits of Wikipedia as a source of information?
   • Wikipedia is a global source that can be edited by anyone and therefore it can provide information from two extremes: extremely credible and reliable or a misrepresentation of the truth. This worldwide access has benefits because anyone can share there insights on any topic and therefore Wikipedia has a large base of information. The worldwide access also acts as a limit because if someone is close minded and wants to misrepresent the truth or portray a certain thing in a negative manner they can go ahead and do so since no one is truly checking every single edit. Wikipedia's editors are both the impact and limit that Wikipedia has on the world.
3. On Wikipedia, all material must be attributable to reliable, published sources. What kinds of sources does this exclude? Can you think of any problems that might create?
   • Wikipedia should ideally be written with sources that come from peer reviewed articles, universities, non biased sources (press releases, websites, etc.), and documents which have a DOI. Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that can be written by anyone, unreliable sources are prone to use because many of the sources I mentioned as credible are usually expensive. If a person does not have access to this expensive material they are likely to use material that is not reliable and as a result Wikipedia becomes less reliable. I am certain that many Wikipedia editors use unreliable sources not because they intend to make Wikipedia less reliable but because they are in fact trying to make it better but since they don't have access to high quality research they have to use information that is not as credible and can lead to problems.
4. If Wikipedia was written 100 years ago, how might its content (and contributors) be different? What about 100 years from now?
   • If Wikipedia were written 100 years ago I believe that the content would be much more limited because not many would be able to contribute. Those who would be able to contribute would have been scholars that had conducted research and were able to provide content that was purely based on books and other credible sources. On the opposite side of the spectrum there may be people who believe that Wikipedia would have been even less reliable because anyone with little to no information of the topic (because of the difficulties in attaing information during that time) could go ahead and write they thoughts. 100 years from now Wikipedia will surley have more content but the reliability of the content might still be like it is today because not many individuals are willing to conduct proper research and write an encyclopedia if they are not required to, they will mostlikey use sources that are not as credible as they should be for an encyclopedia.