If I had to edit one specific page, while others might choose something their familiar with, like a page on their high school, I would edit something I had absolutely no idea about. I would want to test just how thoroughly Wikipedia looks at what is edited and the validity of the information that is posted. I would probably edit the personal life section on a page about a celebrity I hated or the culture of a random foreign country. Replacing what may seem to be the truth with ridiculous statements. I might say that Tom Cruise has a habit of wearing women's underwear or that its common for the people of Kazakhstan to eat male reproductive organs. If Wikipedia is giving me the opportunity to edit anything why not make the most of it.
Friday, November 13, 2009
To edit truthfully or creatively?
My teacher recently told me to edit a page of Wikipedia. My initial thoughts definitely centered around my capability to do so. How could I just edit any certain page on a site that is used by hundreds of millions of people every month? Well I searched the site, and there it was, an editing option on every page, with hundreds of different edits every day. I use this site for information every day and trust that everything I look at is correct. Well, maybe thats not the case If any ordinary person can edit any page without a clue of what their talking about. I began to doubt just how valid Wikipedia was and decided that I needed to definitely double check my information from now on with more trustworthy sources.
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I think that would be an interesting idea to edit something wrongfully, just to see how quickly the Wikipedians can fix it. I'm curious as to see whether or not they monitor high profile pages (such as the president) much more closely than they monitor other pages (such as a page about clocks). Although, I wouldn't want to do anything too drastic that would deface the reputation of Wikipedia, or the integrity of the articles. I would just change something small, rather than say something like "Tom Cruise has a habit of wearing women's underwear."
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