a. What is Wikipedia?
It's a web-based encyclopedia that is available in many different languages. It is nonprofit and is open to anyone who wants to be a part of it.
b. How would you answer the question posed in this piece “How reliable can a source be when anyone can edit it?”?
It won't work in theory, only in practice.
c. Who do the creators of Wikipedia place their trust in when it comes to weeding out misinformation?
The public; with so many people monitoring what is said, vandalism will be spotted almost immediately.
d. Why did founder Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia?
He felt authority should be give to the experts. He created another site Citizendium that does that.
e. What would abuse or vandalism look like on a Wikipedia page?
If opinions were posted instead of facts or if untrue things were written.
f. What do the statistics quoted in the third paragraph of this piece reveal?
That it's very successful and MANY people use it.
g. Why do you think Wikipedia is so successful?
It's available to everyone. It is easily accessible.
h. Why might Wikipedia’s creators not want to accept advertising?
It will complicate things. They are doing more than fine without advertising because of all the donations they receive.
i. How does Wikiscanner help increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries?
It catches those that vandalize the site.
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I use Wikipedia for general knowledge, as I have stated previously. If I don't understand a topic and would like a little more background knowledge, I will use Wikipedia. When I was in English classes, didn't have time to read the assigned reading OR couldn't understand it and SparkNotes didn't have it, Wikipedia was always there to help me. Especially writing papers and needing to know about the time period of authors, Wikipedia is so helpful of that. I would never cite Wiki itself, but I will use some of the links that are at the bottom.
I think that teachers should use Wikipedia as a reference search. For example, like I said how I will use the links at the bottom. Have the students do that instead of completely writing Wikipedia off as if it's nothing. Students will still use it anyway!
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