My initial reaction to being asked to edit a page on Wikipedia is the feeling that it would be a waste of time. It's true that anyone can edit any page on Wikipedia that their heart desires, but unless they are actually knowledgeable on the subject of which they are writing, this edit will not last very long. I have no interest in vandalizing the pages that exist already on Wikipedia, so this is not what I would do if I were to edit a page. I realize that this would ultimately be a complete waste of time because of the faithful Wikipedians that "watch over" the site's content and make sure it does not include false information. Instead I would try to research the subject that I wished to edit and make a meaningful contribution to the site.
I have no interest in editing anything on Wikipedia for all the reasons listed above, because as of right now, I do not believe I am competent enough to do so. For this reason, I believe if I was told I had to edit a page on Wikipedia, I would not do it just yet. I would wait until I had gone much farther into my education and had learned complicated concepts of the field I am in, like biology for example. At that point I would look at some of the pages that pertain to complex information in biology that I had mastered and make sure they were all accurate. In this way my contributions would actually remain relevant and would not immediately be deleted as they would if I were to edit a Wikipedia page now.
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The editing would be a great waste of time. I'm sure that people are checking Wikipedia everyday and once they found our posts they would erase them. This is another reason why I would never post or edit anything on Wikipedia, besides the fact that I do not know enough about any subject to legitimately contribute.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that edits which are blatantly false or vandalizing would be quickly changed by wary Wikipedians. However, how much of that community is truly more competent than you? Although you many only be a freshman, you are obviously intelligent based on your acceptance to U of M. While there are likely some highly intelligent scholars on Wikipedia, I think the majority are spending their time elsewhere.
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