Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Does Wikipedia Really Work?


Since elementary school I was told the website Wikipedia: Free Online Encyclopedia, is not the best place to get information from. Never did I really understand why it was so bad. This is why I chose this article. Wikipedia was recently found to be vandalized and people made changes to the New York Yankees and the Phillies Wikipedia pages. The website allows people to change facts on their pages anonymously and because of that people think they have to right to fool anyone who reads that page. Along with the World Series page, many other pages have been changed and have fooled various people including many different worldwide journalists. Various drug pages have been changed. They have changed the side effects section of these pages and that could end up killing someone. The website is used by many different people also including doctors and physicians who use the encyclopedia for a resource in learning different medical information. This can also toy with someone's life and might end up killing them as well.

I think this information is pure horror. I did know that Wikipedia allows changing in their articles but I had always thought that the only people who could change them is authors or workers at Wikipedia. I had heard various stories about how the website gave off false information, but I always use it for a quick resource. Now, after reading this article I have learned not to use the website even for a quick question I may have. I believe that the website should just take out the option of changing anything on the articles on the website. If they take that out than all of these problems will be solved. No one will be able to change the articles and the website will be saved from further vandalism. This may bring back the popularity of the website and it can become a great resource.

Article: http://www.livescience.com/technology/091106-ttr-wikipedia.html
Photo: http://nfajw.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/wikipedia-logo.jpg

1 comment:

Bmw m3 said...

That is why we are told not to use them.