Wikipedia

Wikipedia has always been a fascinating website and concept to me because it holds an incredible amount of information that is constantly changing. I haven’t really messed around with Wikipedia all that much, I just read it a lot. Like Natasha said, I use it to get a good, solid overview on topics. I’m aware that its not always 100% accurate, but, it can go into a lot of detail about certain things. I don’t necessarily use it for school purposes only either. I find myself searching something on Wikipedia at least 3-5 times a day because I hear about something that I don’t know about and I’m curious. I find that I click on the links in the articles that bring me to other Wikipedia pages and I can get sucked into that website forever.

Before reading these articles, I had never thought about the power of the shared economy. While I realize that Wikipedia is run by mostly ‘volunteers’, it was interesting to think about the enormous amount of information we can get to for free. When it comes to conquering expertise, I go back and forth on whether or not Wikipedia can do that. The first thing that popped into my mind when I thought about it was “two heads are better than one!” If everyone can contribute different piece of information that they gathered from different places, it seems plausible that at some point, this shared economy can conquer expertise. I think it was in Lessig’s chapter that he talked about the Virginia Tech Massacre page on Wikipedia and how quickly it grew and how rich in information it was because all of the journalists and reporters went there to add to the page. Examples like that are easy to point to in making a case about expertise, but I know that not even a small portion of the wiki pages are as accurate or rich in information as the Virginia Tech page.

While it is true that two heads are better than one, and at that, thousands of heads are better than one, there is something about completely conquering expertise that just seems inconceivable for something this massive. There is no way, and I don’t know if there will ever be any way to ensure accuracy in every single wikipedia page at all times. It was interesting to read about the different guidelines and editors that have been made over the years. But no matter how many people are constantly volunteering their time, I don’t think every page can be accurate, up to date and as good as an expert. I don’t know if I believe that any type of encyclopedia will be able to conquer expertise in every way. Although I am interested to see what Sanger is coming out with…the mixture between a wikipedia and a traditional encyclopedia. I don’t see how it can be much better than Wikipedia without losing some of it’s richness. It’s the “wiki” part of wikipedia that makes it so rich in content and so awesome.

As to sharing and the sharing economy, I don’t know exactly what it is that makes people give up their time. I suppose it’s just the nature of our culture. We are constantly striving to learn more so we are willing to help others learn. In terms of sharing articles and such, I feel like I share them (email or post on someone’s facebook wall) because I want to know other peoples opinion. I want to spark conversation about it. I want other people to learn the interesting things that I just had to pleasure to learn. There is something about the notion of sharing that is so prominent to learning and gathering new information. Because of that, we are willing to share, volunteer and offer our time without even thinking about it.