Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Wikipedia - knowledge of everything

Wikipedia is one of the best examples clarifying the question what collective intelligence means. Everybody knows something, which can be put into a big pool of knowledge. In the end, you have a huge database with all kinds of topics, descriptions and definitions.

But I’m wondering that you really can find EVERYTHING on Wikipedia. I have read some statistics, which have shown, that only three percent of the population has ever written an article on Wikipedia. So the most users are inactive internet surfers and use Wikipedia only for gathering knowledge. Nevertheless, Wikipedia is one of the most used Web 2.0 channels in the internet. But, I can’t image that only three percent can manage all those articles. Surely, there will be some administrators, who control the articles. But can they guaranty the correctness of all articles? Additionally, it must be such a big effort to proofread that number of articles. What’s about you? How many of you have ever been active in Wikipedia?

3 comments:

  1. As much as there is on Wikipedia, I'm sure there's even more that is not there. There are Editors and Administrators that exercise decision-making, and this is something that Wikipedia has added more of as it has grown.

    Regarding who edits Wikipedia: here is a very interesting site that maps Wikipedia edits as they happen, based on IP numbers:
    http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html

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  2. I can honestly say that I frequent Wikipedia a lot to get quick formation. But, I have never personally written or corrected any of the listings. So, this class assignment will be very interesting.

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  3. IP address tracking...hot topic a few years back. I was on the receiving end of a phone call from the NEW YORK TIMES and CNN about a false biography that was published from a computer in my office(located by IP address before this was a wiki-posted policy. The reason for the wiki-rule change on who and howedits can happen are due to the actions of a past employee of mine. I am not proud of it, however we all learned a valuable personal lesson about the serious effect that media can have on our lives. I have to say the outcome gave me faith in our right to freedom of speech. Thank you John Seigenthaler for your graciousness and kind heart.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy

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