Wikipedia Is Not An Open Source Essay

Wikipedia is a collaborative resource, which aims to be a compendium of all human knowledge. In a serious examination of Wikipedia as a credible and valid source of information we need to place our argument within a definable framework. As I will show information has many uses, for the purposes of this paper I will examine the use of Wikipedia for scholarly research, the kind, which I will be utilizing throughout the rest of my MBA program. I will be evaluating Wikipedia based on the parameters set forth by Brenda Spatt. The credentials, Impartiality, style/tone, and currency of Wikipedia will all be examined in this paper (Spatt 2011).

If a person wishes to be up to date on what is going on the world around them, in all facets and walks of life, then they must spend a considerable portion of time merely skimming the water of each pool of knowledge, never having the time to truly sink their feet in. This correlates directly back to the massively increased availability of information and writings, whose shoulders Birkerts puts the blame of our loss upon. Nicholas Carr cites a study done on the “behavior of visitors to two popular research sites” which gives its users an even larger degree of online texts.

The ultimate reason Marshal Poe does this is to illustrate his views on information sharing and depict the communities role in it. Poe mentions, “Wikipedia has the potential to be the greatest effort in collaborative gathering the world has ever known, and it may well be the greatest effort in voluntary collaboration of any kind.”, in the very beginning of his article to present his view on collaboration within the community. He describes wikipedia as “the most comprehensive repository of human knowledge in human history.” (Poe 349) This serves to contribute to the idea that information sharing lies within both the community and technology, which was also shown by Marshall Poe upon his discussion of the usage of the bottom-up system and cathedral model. Marshall Poe is ultimately stating that when power is given to the public, they will use it to their own advantage and promote true knowledge, as exemplified through his new and improved biography on Wikipedia. Information sharing is contributing to the progress of human

When students are doing research on the internet, Wikipedia is usually one of the first site to appear. For students, the site is usually tempting to click, but they are quickly reminded by their teachers that Wikipedia should not be used as a site of knowledge. They label the site as inaccurate, unreliable, and uncreditable. In Boyd’s article she writes that teachers consistently tell students to stay clear of Wikipedia at all cost. Students should not have to see the site as tempting. They should be allowed to use it and embrace the site. Wikipedia has so much educational potential and should not be ignored by teachers. Boyd also writes that some analyses have shown that Wikipedia’s content is just as creditable as, if not more reliable than, more traditional resources.

Eventhough, the internet can be helpful with education, it can also be unreliable. However, “The Hive” by Marchall Poe, was the openness of Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that anyone can use it. This might work for some people specially that ones who attend school or college. This is very helpful for them because in Wikipedia you can search or find anything you would like. Since anyone can write, or delete or use information off of Wikipedia, it makes it less controversial because anyone can put their input into the website. If don’t agree with something, that’s alright because you can add your own opinion. Poe describes how authors of certain wiki pages write with a bias to support their facts. Facts become opinions when feelings and emotions of bias get involved. “Instead of relying on experts to

As Carr continues, he speaks of his extended use of the internet over the last decade, explaining that all information that he once painstakingly searched for is done in minutes with the use of search engines. In doing this, Carr places blame on the internet for breaking his ability to concentrate. Carr presents his arguments in a way that his readers could easily agree. He gradually works up to the idea that the internet has weakened his ability to focus, and as he does this he makes several general statements about the internet’s nature. These points on the net’s nature are so basic that any reader of his article would be inclined to agree with them, and this lends itself to help readers believe the argument Carr wishes to propose. Because it would be hard to provide factual evidence to support his claims, Carr effectively uses logical reasoning to convince the reader.

The Wikipedia article on Robert Smalls is not a reliable source of information. Simply because Wikipedia is a form of online Encyclopedia; and you cannot cite Encyclopedia’s to begin with. That being said, I do not think students or the general user should dismiss the source completely because it does have a lot of valuable information in it. Wikipedia is there as a first step in your research, to inform you and give you a good solid background of information you are looking for before you start your deeper research. Personally, I really enjoy Wikipedia because it helps me look for certain points in my research and it makes it a little bit easier. Some people assume that any website is reliable or that only .Edu, .Gov, and .Org are. Even

Should websites such as Wikipedia, Answers.com, and Reference.com be monitored for false information? Author, John Seigenthaler in his narrative article published in 2005 in the USA Today “A False Wikipedia Biography,” he begins his personal story by describing how his character was assassinated by publishing false and malicious “biography” under his name on Wikipedia, the popular, online, free encyclopedia. His first goal is to convey millions of people that Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool. His second goal is to raise the awareness of how Wikipedia works. By establishing his credibility, building his case slowly, and appealing to both logic and emotions, Seigenthaler succeeds in writing an interesting and informative

Carr makes his case by using his own personal experience at the beginning of the argument. Using his own personal experience with internet has helped to reinforce a solid argument. This anecdotal evidence is also used to make a convincing argument. He uses names of individuals and experts’ opinions to illustrate that other persons had the same experience and also feel the same way about the internet. These testimonial evidence makes the argument more credible. The use of historical evidence strengthens his argument based on the fact that some of examples are actually occurring today. This allows the readers to stand on the author’s side of reasoning. Carr also uses factual information about the company of google to convince the readers that

Carr said in his article, “My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages” (735). I agree with his reasons on this. In my opinion, I would rather look at short articles online than read long ones in a book. I feel that the internet has taken over the world. Like used in the article, the internet is “chipping away” our knowledge (Carr 737). Many people do not realize how harmful the internet has actually become in today’s society. An outside source that Carr put into his article was from Google’s headquarters. Larry Page, one of Googles founders, once said in a speech “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people – or smarter” (745). This quote was from a few years back. Since then, technology has been increasing. If a few years ago, technology was known to be smarter than people, imagine what the world is going to look like in ten years. Our knowledge is not increasing because we feel it does not

Towards the beginning of Carr’s essay he contradicted himself by saying, “Research that one required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes.” (371) Within the next paragraph Carr states, “The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many.” It is not Google alone, nor just the Internet that we need to worry about, it’s the technological advancement overall. Throughout history people have criticized technological advancements, but look past the endless possibilities it created. Now we are only one click away from information that we need, instead of looking at the information that we use to carry inside our heads. Frederick Taylor created a system that created the best outcome for factories but the Internet is a machine designed for the best outcome, “the perfect algorithm, to carry out every mental movement of what we’ve come to describe as knowledge work.” (375)

Google Doc is a web based application associated with Google that is used to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, web forms, and drawings. The documents can also be edited, shared, and stored online. The documents can be stored on Google Doc and Google Drive. The documents created can be accessed from anywhere on a device that is connected to the internet. The application allows users to edit, create, update, and import documents and share them with many users who have a Google account. Most of the people that use Google Doc are students and companies. Google Docs allows students to share group projects and assignments with their classmates and colleagues to collaborate and work on documents as a team. Companies use Google Doc

But like everything else this can also have it’s draw backs. Because there is so much information out there that is not credible, the problem is how do we know which one is and which one is not. I am glad that I have found out that the wikipedia site is not a reliable source because this is one of the first ones that pops up after we input what we want to find out. This

Badke (2008) begins his article reminding us that Wikipedia although controversial is still the online encyclopedia of choice by 36% of the United States population according to Pew Internet & American Life Project’s findings. (As quoted by Badke, para. 1)

Claimed by its founder to be a non-profit organization/website, Wikileaks was firstly launched in 2006. Some call it an open government group that enables public witnessing (Nayar, 2011; Rosewall & Warren, 2010), while others see it as a representation of a new type of “sovereignty in the global political and economy sphere” (Bodó, 2011, p. 3). The website uses the term “wiki” which was followed after Wikipedia due to its anonymous contributors and