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 thousands 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.
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.
While I doubt that "hundreds of millions of people" use Wikipedia, I find it very funny about what you would choose to edit, had you been told to by a teacher. I had never thought to edit a page incorrectly and see the swiftness and thoroughness of the Wikipedia community. After I read your post, I too have decided it would be more entertaining to edit a Wikipedia page incorrectly and see the response by other users.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of editing a page incorrectly on purpose strikes me as a very interesting proposition. I would assume that editing a page like Tom Cruise's would not end up successfully--I am sure that Cruise has publicists that make sure all of the information about him online is accurate. What would be far more interesting is editing on a topic that is not as well known, or is not under constant watch. This would be a true test of whether Wikipedia is really a legitimate source.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of editing a page incorrectly on wikipedia, that was one of my initial thoughts as well. I think that it would be very interesting to see how well wikipedia screens the infomation before it is posted. Doing this would enable you to determine how reliable wikipedia really is as a source.
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