Upon reading the
text of the second paragraph of a photographed Wikipedia article I was
surprised and alarmed by the unanticipated obscene material embedded within
factual information about thermodynamics. The screenshot depicts a version of
the wiki article prior to Carra Leah Hood’s editing. By coincidence, Hood came
across the obscene material only an hour and eight minutes after it was posted
and was able to quickly remove it and further edit the article. This capability
is the keystone of Wikipedia’s functionality.
Because
collaborative writing pieces like Wikipedia entries have several
authors who are unknown, unpredictable and come from potentially diverse
cultural and educational backgrounds, they have the potential (and sometimes
likelihood) of deteriorating during the writing process. Because of this,
Wikipedia entries are often dubbed unreliable. But integrating information from
multiple cultural and educational viewpoints also has clear benefits. The goal is to
create a shared understanding. It is up to the editors to be conscious of this
and sensitive to this.
Wikipedia places
inherent value on the writing process over the written product. Wikipedia is
revolutionary in the sense that no article will ever be finished, but will
instead act as an “always and forever a public conversation” (Hood). I think
this is the greatest strength of a web-based, collaborative encyclopedia. Students
have been conditioned to think that writing serves its functions only as a
finalized product. I think it would be helpful and beneficial for students to
view their own written work as constantly evolving products. That is becoming
easier now that a majority of writing is conducted on the web and can be easily
adjusted. The effects of not only placing value on process over product, but
creating a medium that only functions as process, are numerous and worth
investigating.
These collaborative
aspects of Wikipedia raise the question of whether Wikipedia serves to further
or inhibit the writing process (individually and collaboratively), or to both
further and inhibit it in distinctive modes.
I think the way you said "no article will ever be finished" is very unique and true. Every one has a different knowledge base than the next person who will be editing that Wikipedia article. It's a great balance of minds when it can all come together in that way. It's like an online version of telephone; one person comes along and writes up to their knowledge, and then someone else comes along and can pick up where they left off. The way Wikipedia has set editing guidelines helps with this as well. Having three edits in a day gives plenty of space for readers to learn and retain information without constantly feeling like they have to check back in to reevaluate what they've learned. Wikipedia isn't meant to be a dense (speaking about the articles) place where people are continually needing to go back and check what they knew before like an ongoing science experiment. Wikipedia is a fast way to educate, and that isn't bad, it's very useful and I think that without the rules set in place it would turn into a mess.
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