Week4: Reliability of Wikipedia source -- ZHANG XIAOTONG(장효동)

Summary

Wikipedia is the world's largest online encyclopedia. Its openness and editability have attracted a large number of users. Its content is contributed by users around the world and is constantly improved through collaboration. However, this feature is both its advantage, making Wikipedia an important platform for information dissemination, but it also raises questions about its reliability.

 

Interesting Points

 

1. Open for editing:

Wikipedia allows anyone to edit entries, which allows it to quickly update its information base and collect a wide range of information from editors around the world. Many seemingly unpopular content or professional topics can also find relevant information on Wikipedia, which far exceeds the coverage of traditional encyclopedias.

2. The wisdom of crowds: 

Wikipedia has a large number of volunteers and administrators, who are called "Wikipedians". It is precisely because of their monitoring and continuous maintenance that errors and sensitive information in Wikipedia can usually be corrected in a relatively short period of time, especially in popular topic entries, where errors and malicious tampering of content are often difficult to exist for a long time. This model of multiple contributors jointly maintaining content to increase the breadth and coverage of information embodies the "wisdom of the crowd".

3. Quick updates on hot events:

Due to the openness of Wikipedia, it can quickly update and absorb information from multiple sources, especially in terms of breaking news and global events, the speed of update is much faster than traditional media, and it can reflect the latest developments almost in real time.

 

Areas for discussion

 

1. Is the information on Wikipedia reliable?

Wikipedia allows instant editing, but most of the content may not be strictly reviewed, and some content may even be maliciously tampered with for political and positional reasons. Although the community and administrators will monitor, when there is too much information, these errors or malicious information may not be discovered and corrected for a long time.

 

2. The quality of information varies. How to ensure its referenceability?

Wikipedia requires that content cite reliable sources, but in reality, some entries’ references come from news websites, blogs, and even social media. The quality of information from different sources varies, which may affect the credibility of the information.

 

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