Reading Response #2

Can WIKIPEDIA Ever make the Grade?
By: Read, Brock
Chronicle of Higher Education
10/27/2006, Vol. 53 Issue 10

Summary:
This article “Can WIKIPEDIA Ever Make Grade” talked about the problems that scholars have with the site. It discusses Wikipedia’s process for editing and adding new entries. It goes on to discuss how one professor Alexander M.C. Halavais tried to deliberately include erroneous information on the site and within only hours Wikipedia found the errors and had them removed. The big question this article arises is whether scholars feel they should join in with the “Wikipedians” and contribute to the articles on the site. Some scholars say that they have tried to contribute information for one reason or another it was rejected. Whether it was too lengthy or whether it was simply editing someone else’s article who didn’t take kindly to the editing. Some scholars have even talked about making their own site that goes through a more thorough committee of scholars or professors ensuring its accuracy.

My Reaction:
I definitely think that professors and scholars are just way too uptight when it comes to Wikipedia. Why only Wikipedia? There are numerous different sites on the internet that claims to be accurate sources of one subject or another. Wikipedia is justified in doing whatever they want to with their site and using whatever rules they would like to, it’s their site. If the scholars and professors want so badly to contribute to a site and to be heard they could just start their own wiki site where they confirm the credentials of contributors. They’d have a market for it. It seems there are enough people that disagree with Wikipedia to have an audience.
What I can’t understand is how professors and scholars have enough time to worry about one website. They should focus more time ensuring that people especially young people do better research. If there were more people educated on doing research than there would be less people to fall into the traps of misinformation. With the change that the internet and technology has made on information and the way the people research, there should be a class that is required as young as elementary school or middle school that teaches students at young ages how to evaluate web pages and consult various sources before taking something in as truth.