Wiki – Devil?
Monday, March 1st, 2010The whole panties in a bunch over Wikipedia is starting to seriously piss me off. “Anyone can write the information on there!” *gasp* There are so many reasons why Wikipedia is not the worst source of information the internet has to offer. Wikipedia is not the devil trying to mess with the minds of millions! What’s messing with the minds of millions are the narrow minded fools who pick Wiki to be the site to fear. What is there to be afraid of? If you need information and you end up at Wiki, but want to be sure – go look for other resources to validate that information. Or scroll down and find the reference part of the page – because plagiarism is frowned upon there too. Follow the links and find the information you are looking at to be factual. If you watch your six o’clock news and believe every word that comes out of their mouths – you cannot say that Wiki is evil. If you read your morning paper trusting that everything is one hundred percent factual – you cannot say that Wiki is evil. I have to doubt everything I read – second guess it all. I can go and buy a dot com or org and I can call it whatever I want – and then I can post any information about anything I wish. I can say that that Elvis was cremated and Priscilla drank the ashes as tea! I know this because I was a house keeper for her and I know everything about her! You have two choices after reading something like that – one, believe me and walk away, or two, go look for proof that I am indeed telling you the truth. The point is – Wikipedia is no better or worse than the rest of the internet. They have some interesting editors and in the end what ends up on Wiki is up to them. It is really their jobs to go seek out facts and make sure that not just anyone is writing crap on Wiki. You cannot just go to Elvis’ wiki page and write that Priscilla drank Elvis’ ashes – someone will erase it quickly.
There is a lot to Wikipedia and like anything else we must educate ourselves on how it works and what it is all about before we dub it as “evil!” Teachers are going out of their way, failing students who bring in a paper with Wikipedia on their reference page. The silly thing is – when you go in search of information, a lot of the time where that site got its information was from Wikipedia! Wikipedia is the site that typically pops up on the first page of any search engine and is the go to informational site in a rush. Wiki is not the devil – the people running around with their heads stuck in their…. you know what I mean…. are the ones who have made Wikipedia a bad word.


































