Activity 20: Wikipedia

Try It

You may already be familiar with Wikipedia as an information source, but try exploring some of the article elements a bit further. Start by looking up something that interests you. Look at the references linked at the bottom of the page – whether the article itself is complete and accurate or not, these references can be a good starting point for research elsewhere online.
Note the History and Talk tabs. These can be very interesting, particularly for controversial articles or subjects where there are strong opposing viewpoints, and you can see how the current version has been reached. In these sections, readers can suggest changes and argue their points. Take a look at the discussion for a few articles.
Explore further
Try editing a Wikipedia page. You don’t have to have an account, but setting one up allows you to participate in discussions more easily and actually allows you more anonymity (you can operate under a pseudonym with an account, but an anonymous edit will record your IP address).
Take a look at the Public Library of Science’s Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia before you get started, and use Wikipedia’s markup cheat sheet as a guide.
Do keep in mind that you’re not generally encouraged to edit information about your own organization, as it may present a conflict of interest.

Blogging Exercise for This Activity

What are your thoughts on Wikipedia as an information source? Do you think it is reliable? Does having the information on the history and talk pages available add to your understanding of page topics?

Hmmm..well, I remember at first being fairly skeptical about Wikipedia and then as I used it more it seemed fairly reliable due to all the citations that were used. It is interesting to read the article about the person who wrote the book about IBM and the Holocaust and his claims that his materials were edited out of Wikipedia articles and it is also interesting to read Wikipedia's article about Wikipedia itself and the claims that Wikipedia is inaccurate, biased, etc. Also to know more about Wikipedia's history and that its founders had a pornographic site before they started Wikipedia...it's all a little too much. I don't want to have to read who is posting and deleting what...I guess I will continue to take Wikipedia with a grain of salt and be a little more dubious than I had been. I accidentally created an account for Wikimedia which isn't the same as Wikipedia..wikipedia is still considering whether I can have an account and will see about sending me a password. I'm not holding my breath as I don't really want to edit a page, but am trying this as an academic/personal growth type of exercise. I looked at the history and talk pages and it is interesting to see comments and requests for edits..it does seem that most take this quite seriously..I don't see anything that looks nefarious, but who knows..there is so much to it that it seems endless and makes me feel tired....