It's true that many people take everything from the internet as truth without much thinking. Sometimes we did it too. As an most familiar example, the content from Wikipedia. As a student, when we are doing our assignment, the most popular site that we try to search for information is Wikipedia. It appears to be very convenient for us by just entering some key words, we got what we want. But, how many of us will do a more in-depth research of the content before we use it? Honestly, sometimes, or most of the times, I didn't. In fact, we should search for second reference to confirm it before we trust the source. The truth is, the content in Wiki cannot be trusted 100%.
The content of Wiki is actually created by anyone and can be edited by any person who accesses it with a web browser! We ourselves can create a page describing a new term that don't even exist! Some colleges banned their students from using the site in citation.
There are many cases where the content in Wiki were found fake or faulty. For example, there was entry reported in Wiki at March 2007 that a actor-comedian Sinbad was dead. The entry was found to be fake and the entry was quickly edited later. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2042333_2042334_2042337,00.html
Another example is, Wiki listed Hilary Clintons as having been the valedictorian of her class in Wellesley College in her biography. The biography was there for about 20 months within 2005 and 2006. But this was found later to be wrong. http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/00446/Wikipedia_trust.html
It was found that a prolific Wikipedia contributor and editor, Essjay who claimed himself as a professor with degrees in theology and canon law, is in fact a 24-year-old college drop-out. His real name is Ryan Jordan. He used texts such as Catholicism for Dummies to help him in Wikipedia editing . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544803/Wikipedia-professor-is-24-year-old-college-dropout.html
As a conclusion, although we can find information quickly from Wikipedia, we should double check its content before fully trust it. Even the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales said "If what you're after is 'who won the World Cup in 1986', it's going to be fine - no problem. If you want to know something a little more esoteric, or something that's going to be controversial, you should probably use a second reference - at least." http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/00446/Wikipedia_wars.html
wow thank you for reminding us about wiki. you had a greater view of what most of us had taken granted of and forgot about our reliance on wiki as often as everyday. I had personally used wiki to search for almost everything to get the news that i wasted without a doubt about it.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree with you. Me myself also often find references from Wikipedia. It is quite convenient. Anyway, i agree with what you mention above. We should not just rely to 1 source as those information could be false.
ReplyDeleteAgree with you. Wiki is an editable source of information in the internet. Anyone can freely add any information in it after logging in, that is why sometimes it can be false depends on the author's concept on an issue.
ReplyDeleteTherefore, we sometimes must read many times and understand the information on wiki before taking it as reference.
Agree with you Jean, and I knew about the wiki that can be edited. From knowing that I always double confirm by checking out other website before I confirm about one answer or explaination.
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