How it Works: Wikipedia
Everyone now knows about Wikipedia and if you don't know, it is an online free encyclopedia developed by a non-profit organization. It has become one of the 50 most popular websites and in this article, I will tell you why it is not only a good resource for looking up information but also how it works.
Wikipedia is run totally by the community and is known for its free "Edit this Page" tab above a page where anyone is allowed to edit this page by adding new content or editing the current. This is a great feature because it does not have to rely on the developers to find the information but gives volunteers within the community that have this knowledge to add what they know. But with this comes the spamming. Of course there are people out there on the WWW that just love to ruin everyones day by adding false information to pages. Now here is where Wikipedia relies on its community to change it back. Many people have gone in to pages and changed information to make it false just how fast the community can change it and they were overwhelmed by the response. I tested it myself by adding a URL to my website onto a page based on Animals in Space and in less than 5 minutes, it had disappeared!
Another thing that Wikipedia does very well is fix problems within the community. One of these problems are:
What if a group that disagrees to one of the pages on Wikipedia gets enough people to join together and try to remove this page?
That would be very bad if that happens because what if it is a religious group that dislikes another religion. They can overpower the community and vote the page off the site. Well the development team just answers, we will bend the rules. If they think that removing this page is because of an opinion, then they will not.
So overall, Wikipedia is a great website that gives the community full rights to change anything on the informative pages. It feels like you run this website but you have a duty to give the rest of the community true information. Thanks for reading!
All information was found on the video Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia on TED.com.
Rohan Kohli
Reader Comments (4)
I disagree. Wikipedia is good for just quick things u might want to look up, like some "facts" about Jimmy Page. But if you want something reliable, never use Wikipedia. It is very untrustworthy as anyone can go in and falsify information. I have experienced this. You never know if what you are reading is true or not. I personally dislike Wikipedia. Good article, just leading people into a bad position.
On the contrary, "fenderstrat", you seem to not be aware about the amount of administrators Wikipedia has.
Most vandalism is dealt with within mere hours. I once submitted an article I was unaware existed(I was merely misspelling it), and within 10 minutes, someone had gone on a added a redirection to the proper page. Anyone may be able to edit it, but there are hundreds(Probably thousands, but I don't even know) of people watching the site ready to correct anything that's been tampered with. The most simple and even valid changes get checked very quickly.
Obviously, yes, on occasion you may find something that is incorrect; I'm not saying it's impossible.
Though I must say that most of the time it's not even done well enough to not be obvious, and even so, as I've said, I'm sure it will be corrected briefly.
You both make good points and I respect both of your answers, but this story was not meant to state on an opinion on whether you should use it as a resource and all but just to show how Wikipedia relies on its community rather than its own developer team.
Thanks for the comments!
Rohan
Ah, of course, you are correct.
I need to stop getting worked up so easily. :(