Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Wikipedia, The New Medium
Wikipedia offers anyone with a internet connection the ability to post and edit articles about basically anything. And I don’t think this is a bad thing at all. Yes, there are some people who have the mind of a seven year old and like to screw up articles with slurs or pornographic photos, but there are even more people who don’t do this and who post the facts.
And if you post an article and its wrong, then someone will come along and correct you. It’s the new way to gather knowledge because it includes everyone and not just a professor or scholar. It’s the new medium for people to look for information, or at least start at Wikipedia and then continue their search. Much like blogs let people talk about anything they want, this new wiki media lets people contribute their knowledge to the world.
Its not all correct of course, its not written in proper English with proper grammar like those old encyclopedia Britannica’s but that’s the best part about it. There is an edit button, where you or anyone and make a change. It may be hard to determine the validity of some articles that are more opinioned because they will have been edited many times, but for simple facts I believe its good. It opens the world to information because it’s free but also opens the world to correcting one another and gaining even more knowledge.
And if you post an article and its wrong, then someone will come along and correct you. It’s the new way to gather knowledge because it includes everyone and not just a professor or scholar. It’s the new medium for people to look for information, or at least start at Wikipedia and then continue their search. Much like blogs let people talk about anything they want, this new wiki media lets people contribute their knowledge to the world.
Its not all correct of course, its not written in proper English with proper grammar like those old encyclopedia Britannica’s but that’s the best part about it. There is an edit button, where you or anyone and make a change. It may be hard to determine the validity of some articles that are more opinioned because they will have been edited many times, but for simple facts I believe its good. It opens the world to information because it’s free but also opens the world to correcting one another and gaining even more knowledge.
String enough of these addicts together, add a few thousand casual users,
and pretty soon you have a new way to do an old thing. Humankind has long sought
to tame the jungle of knowledge and display it in a zoo of friendly facts. But
while the urge to create encyclopedias has endured, the production model has
evolved. Wikipedia is the latest stage (Daniel H. Pink)
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A very good post. I agree with Pink, Wikipedia is just the latest stage of the encyclopedia. Will wiki's remain open to all or become high-level closed communities of invited authors and editors?
Will the non-profit aspect be the death of wiki-culture in the long run?
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Will the non-profit aspect be the death of wiki-culture in the long run?
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