Nve98

Hypothetical Wikipedia landscapes

• If Wikipedia was written 100 years ago, how might its content (and contributors) be different? What about 100 years from now?

If Wikipedia was written 100 years ago, I feel it would be very biased and the contributors would be less diverse. Even though there is already a low percentage of female editors on Wikipedia currently, I feel like there probably would be no women contributing to Wikipedia. As it relates to the subject matter, people were not as free to express their opinions on certain topics, such as segregation, racism and civil rights. Even though freedom of speech/ freedom of the press is legally protected by the first amendment, the contributions on Wikipedia most likely would have been controlled by a small group of high ranking people, censoring information with concrete evidence to ensure reputations are not damaged and to maintain the status quo. One hundred years in the future, in my opinion Wikipedia may not even exist anymore. It is highly possible that it would become overly saturated with unreferenced material from inexperienced users. Wikipedia is often seen as unreliable by school professors, so this situation is most likely to exacerbate as time goes on.

• If Wikipedia and civil engineering topics were being written 100 years ago, how might its content (and contributors) be different? How would Wellington have written about railroad economy? How would Campbell? John Haydon? Milnor Roberts? What about 100 years from now? What would CE knowledge look like 100 years from now?  Would a wiki platform remain relevant?

With regards to Civil Engineering topics, the content and contributors probably would not differ greatly as other socioeconomic topics, even though the great emphasis on referencing on reviewing probably would not have been prevalent as it is on Wikipedia now. It can be said that their probably would have been greater content on the origins of Civil Engineering economy/ economists as there is a great lack of information in certain articles pertaining to Civil Engineers in the 19th century.The writings of Haydon, Campbell, Wellington and Milnor Roberts are accurate representations of the times they were in, as they published their writings on railroad with their first hand experiences along with reputable sources, as any publisher would do. Therefore the information would be more accurate, as the information of editors are second hand. 100 years from now it probably would be more complex, talking about the vast and more advanced projects that would have taken place along with the predicted advancement in technology. The question remains whether or not editors would be able to keep with the massive amount of information.