User:Subzero10/Draft Wikipedia

Most teachers tell students not to use Wikipedia because it is not a trustworthy source, but what they do not know is that Wikipedia articles are guarded and have different levels of protection to manage vandalism to any article. Wikipedia is managed by verified users that are put in place to only restrict them to make edits and changes to a certain article. People are able to sabotage articles, but the article will not remain up for long and will be restored with the original information . Articles are monitored daily by site administration, moderators, and confirmed users to ensure that the articles are protected and provide accurate information. Most articles that are vandalized through Wikipedia’s website are reviewed by administration and verified users to determine what to change so the correct information from the original article can be restored. Therefore, Wikipedia is a dependable source because they have reliable references, different levels of protection, and provide people with a wide range of information.

When writing academic essays or articles, you have to rely on a sources to receive your information from. Every article on Wikipedia has a section where you can access there references. For and article to be reliable they have to have a certain way of producing and showing their references. When writing articles for Wikipedia your sources can not be from blog post, social media , a subjects own website , or press release (Silva, 2018). References from Wikipedia articles rely on reliable secondary sources , which are sources from academic journals and books . These sources are more dependable because their sources are reviewed by scholars before it is published and sent out to the public. Given that the articles rely on these type of sources helps people know and confirm that they are getting information that is true.

Another reason why Wikipedia articles are reliable because they have different levels of protection (Silva 2018). Most people do not know that Wikipedia articles are ran by administration an verified users. These people are put in place to make sure that articles that are being published for people to see are not vandalized, have no grammatical errors, and check for the accuracy of the information being provided. “When some Wikipedia editors notice that citations are missing or language is sloppy ,or notability is questionable , they become deletions and remove the article”.( Elizabeth M. Nix, Pg 262) When articles are vandalized they go through a process of being reviewed to see what was change. In this process they look at the users who change the information , what changes they have made, and what they can do to fix the changes someone has made . Although anyone can change information on the articles that information will not be on the site for long. Verified users are the ones that make the edit to the change information. Bots are very important to Wikipedia,  and are similar to verified users. (Silva ,2018) A Bots tasks includes detecting and sending alerts and verification to verified users to alert them of vandalism. Bots are programed to make edits each and everyday to protects users articles.

The last reason why Wikipedia is a reliable site is because of the wide range of knowledge it provides on its website. Wikipedia provides information on sports, people, particular events, countries, and almost anything you can name. “Wikipedia, created in 2001, has become a major force on the Internet, being the sixth most visited website and the most visited reference source” (Robert Kosovsky, 242). Wikipedia articles are published on a daily basis and helps multiple people find the information that they are looking for. Being that teachers always say, “Don’t use Wikipedia”, is starting to steer me in asking them “Why don’t you use Wikipedia”. Wikipedia is considered an online encyclopedia, that gives information on relative topics, so I do not except people to carry around encyclopedias to get their information from when you can just look up the information on the internet which Wikipedia provides.

Teachers should view Wikipedia as a dependable source because they have reliable references, different levels of protection, and provide people with a wide range of information. The reliable references they use come from academic journals, books, and trustworthy websites. To guard the published information, they have different levels of protection that come from verified users and bots. Wikipedia has different levels of protection because they need to protect the wide range of information that the site provides. So, in all Wikipedia is a reliable source to use.

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