A Critique of Pure Wiki

Well, my perception of Wikipedia sure has changed this semester. In all honesty, I thought that Wikipedia was some type of online database of articles for practitioners of Wicca, the neo-religious witchcraft movement. The symbols and characters on the puzzle pieces of Wikipedia’s logo seemed like a cryptic magic ball of sorts. I was young when I though that—just a dabbler in the online encyclopedia/Witchcraft-religious information database. IDSM 175 later, though, I realize much better what goes into Wikipedia. Sometime, someone somewhere assimilated information and lots of people followed suit and, voilà, Wikipedia is now a treasure trove of information on basically any subject. This I greatly respect. Making edits myself and actually getting involved in this grand assimilation process has further demonstrated the efficacy of individual contribution and teamwork. Because of this, I have enjoyed the work the class has done with Wikipedia, but I have my beefs with it, too. The concept is great. The world contributes a wealth of knowledge for mutual access and engenders an appreciation of others’ additions. This reminds me of something from the plagiarism chapter of the MLA: the free-exchange of information. It’s something akin to utopian haven for knowledge, where all sorts of information coexist under one big roof, not fractured into chapters, volumes, or MOBIUS clusters. Also, since I know that the entire world can see what I add, I ensure that my contributions are really that: contributions. Obviously, I have enjoyed getting better acquainted with Wikipedia and understanding what it’s all about. In the framework of the interdisciplinary studies course, I can easily see how Wikipedia fits. People from all perspectives and walks of life offer up their information, which means that, eventually, we will arrive at a thoroughly informative result void of bias—at least in theory. Think about it like a statistician. If n is really big, the histogram will be nicely bell-shaped and the majority of results will fall in the middle, making the mean the informative, nonbiased information. For the reason of making students of interdisciplinarity a part of the evolutionary process of Wikipedia’s information. Because I feel that Wikipedia is somewhat inherently interdisciplinary, I feel like I didn’t learn anything about the discipline of my area of study (East Asian Studies), but do feel like I helped further develop Wikipedia’s comprehensive perspective on subjects in East Asian Studies, such as Chinese philosophy. I do, however, feel that parts of the Wikipedia assignments less useful and relevant compared to the term paper and research. For me, in scope, the Wikipedia projects were cool to a point, and, after that point, I feel as if the term paper should have been the primary focus because was more readily applicable to my interests and my major. In no way am I suggesting that the Wikipedia exercises were pointless; au contraire, they were quite pointy. I recommend that they constitute part of the class, though I’m not sure that they are the best methods to showcase some of the interdisciplinary projects and “real” edits from later in the semester. I have two reasons for this: 1) Since I’m no aficionado on eastern Asia, I don’t feel qualified to start a brand new page and assume that people will take me seriously, even though I’m way interested. 2) For one person to add a large chunk of information on one single subject somewhat contradicts the purely “informative, nonbiased” idea of information from countless contributions. Thus, I feel like Wikipedia can be immeasurably useful in research and exploratory stages, yet I do not feel like I was one to add large “real” edits at the end of the semester for the above reasons. All in all, though, and I feel like I can speak on behalf of most of the class on this one, our contributions to Wikipedia have contributed to IDSM 175 and even helped us understand what interdisciplinary really means.

Reflection on Reflection

I think what you wrote about Wikipedia being for Wiccans was really funny. Aren't there any Chinese characters in the logo? I know one of the pieces is katakana. And the statistics metaphor was clever. I had the same problem with the "real" article assignments. I'm just starting my major, so I'm no expert on Japan and I know there are lots of individuals on Wiki more qualified than I am to make new articles. One purpose of the assignment might have been to make us more confident in that respect (the whole "be bold" thing, and all), but no one in our class wants to be responsible for the spread of misinformation. About one person adding a large chunk of information: that will always create bias, because the person's personal beliefs go into his/her selection of what information is important enough to include and the wording of the information. However, it can still be purely informative if the writer is careful enough only to write facts, not opinions, or to label opinions as such. Plus, that's the most efficient way of expanding Wiki. One of the "teamwork" aspects of the project is that other users are responsible for reviewing information and making sure to remove as much bias as possible. While it might not be a good idea to rely on that, especially when you write about really obscure topics, I think that if you know what you're doing then adding a great deal of information on your own isn't a bad idea. Tokidoki27 16:12, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

More Reflections

I really like what he had to say about Wikipedia, mostly because his viewpoint wasn't skewed one way or the other, rather, he gave a really well rounded viewpoint about the pros and cons of Wiki. I think its good that although he didn't feel as if he contributed a LOT or "real" things to wiki, that he did understand what active users of Wikipedia try to accomplish. I enjoyed his feedback, especially when he mentioned that he used to believe that Wiki concerned Wicca-b/c I did too at first. :) Lvlnglafoftneatsteak

More. . .yeah

I agree about not feeling like I knew enough about one particular topic to do to the "real" edits. When I tried, my edit was immediately deleted. :-( And way to balance the good and bad feedback about Wikipedia. . .I suppose that I'm far too cynical and angry at the end of the semester to really do that, though I love the idea of thinking positively. Three cheers for Jarrett! Woo hoo! Yeah. . . Marieprecious 00:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)