The Ups and Downs of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a “web based, free content encyclopedia projected supported by the Wikimedia Foundation”.  Wikipedia has been widely debated in the academia world for its accuracy information being reported. The debates of Wikipedia’s accuracy stems from it being a user generated encyclopedia .I would be wrong to answer the question of rather Wikipedia is ok to use in academic papers. My understanding and knowledge of Wikipedia is limited.

 What I am able to speak on are some the strengths that Wikipedia has as an encyclopedia. I also am able to talk about how one article in particular that I read compares to Wikipedia’s reliable sources requirements. Based off my findings of the one article I read does not speak for Wikipedia’s reliability as a whole but my findings could be issues that not only occur in my article that I read but, other Wikipedia articles.

One of what I find to be Wikipedia’s major strengths is that it founded by a foundation. Wikipedia being an encyclopedia that solely functions off donations allows the people who participate in the community not to be persuaded by financial gain. In the text Blogging by Jill Rettberg she discuses how when bloggers begin to blog for money they have to “maintain trust “with their public (139). Though Rettberg was talking about people in the Blogging community specifically this concept can apply to people who are in the world of writing as a whole. When finanical gain is at stake for a writer they really have to work hard and prove themselves as trustworthy to their audiences while writing. Writing to not gain is easier to establish trust with your public.

The second thing Rettberg discusses about the community of blogging but can apply to Wikipedia is by “…letting people contribute…you build readership and a sense of community” (163).Wikipedia being a interactive encyclopedia community. Hyperlinking encyclopedia links builds what Rettberg calls “distributed network”(69). Distributed network is a term that has derived from the computer community but is applicable with Wikipedia. It’s when there is one central hub and inter connects with other computers. Wikipedia is the central hub in this case but the user generated content are the other computers around it that help it function.

After looking at Wikipedia on a larger scale I got to focus in on one of its articles. The article I focused on was how the Us Treasury Bureau designed and Produces Cuba’s silver certificates. The article two main sources were the Cuba Before the World: A Comprehensive and Descriptive Account of the Republic of Cuba From the Earliest Times to the Present Day and the New York Times. The book was an excellent choice to use because before books are published they have to be fact checked but using the New York Times may or may not have been the best choice. Wikipedia in their reliablesources article  states on how one hand “news reporting from well established news outlets generally considered reliable…” but on the other hand news sources often contain both factual content and opinion content”.  The situation presented here is a double edge sword. The New York Times is a creditable newspaper but on the other hand newspapers have a mix of fact and opinion.  The situation would fall under  “Faulty use of Authority” what Edward Corbett talks about in his text called The Elements of Reasoning.

Just because a source is considered an authority doesn’t mean there always right. The article on Wikipedia could have been better enhanced if it used multiple authors to confirm the point and not just two sources.

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Based off Corbett and Eberly article I understood them to be saying that we consume mass amounts of media but what people don't understand is the mass amounts of media are becoming business. Forms of today’s media are not acting in the way that they were intended to be because to the owners of the media it’s all about business. With there being this push to consume more media than as bloggers we really have to begin to strengthen are arguments and do it well because their are tons of other sources that are speaking to the public. Corbett and Eberly list several examples of how getting a rhetorical message to the public can be done wrong.  Overall I saw the examples fall under one umbrella of be careful of what you say and how you say it because you can send the wrong information to your reader and discredit your argument. 

The article Criminal Justice Racism by Jamelle Bouie violated some of what Corbett and Eberly describe as good tactics to use when forming your argument. One of the things that it violated was playing into people's worst fears. If the participants in the research were known to have a fear of black people than they should have used them to complete the research. I also think the title can be biased because it singles out white people. There are other groups that don't like blacks.