The Wonderful World of Wikipedia

Wiki sites are a great way for people to share information and ideas easily through the internet. It allows for current information to be viewed and updated and outdated information to be removed. These sites can be extremely beneficial in allowing professionals to present their ideas and current findings to the public, quickly and easily. Wikipedia is one of those wiki sites which started small and then gradually “took off.”  Wikipedia began in 2001 by a couple of internet entrepreneurs who came up with the idea of putting an encyclopedia on-line.  Today, it has grown to over 21 million pieces of information and is one of the first pieces of resource material for many people. 

Wikipedia got its name from the word wiki – meaning a website where anyone can add, modify or delete contents and there is more than just one website that conforms to this idea.  Other examples of wiki sites include Facebook, YouTube and MySpace – these sites also allow you to post, share, edit and view information with a variety of people.Wikipedia is a site which can be easily edited and viewed all over the world. New trends, information and ideas are added daily. This allows the users to access the most current and up-to-date information on millions of topics.  The general public has access to add a new article or to edit one they found on-line.  The specific topics are endless. Fellow blogger Cassandra shares a simliar view on the importance of Wikipedia. She agrees that it is a great place to get some background information on a topic in which you might not be familiar with. Even though it is a good source to get background information on, you still have to be cautious of vandalism, as anyone can edit a page. 

I chose to add to the Stringhalt stub. This is a condition in horses which results in the over exaggerated movement on one or both hind limbs. We have encountered this condition in one of our own horses and knew little about it at the time. I found 4 references from past research on the Australian Stringhalt and described this form of the condition. The most difficult part of this assignment was integrating the html in order to make the page look like the other Wikipedia pages. Adding citations was the most difficult, while bolding and adding links to other Wikipedia articles was the easiest.

Briggs, N. (2012). Stringhalt Wikipedia Entry [Screen Capture]. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stringhalt

 

Although Wikipedia is an easily accessible and quick way to access information about a large variety of topics, there have been some concerns on how reliable this information really is. A disadvantage to allowing the public to edit and add information is that edits may not always be precise.  They are also open to vandalism.  It is through the system of having registered users who are allowed to modify, delete or correct articles, does the system work.  A consensus of authors must approve the page before it is posted.  This alleviates the problem of one author having authority over the page and posting their biased beliefs or incorrect information. Once a page is posted, authors and editors can track the pages to make sure that any further edits or additions stay true to the articles.  This is all done with special tracking software designed for these special wiki sites. Most pages found in Wikipedia link reference sections so you are not dependent upon the Wikipedia article alone.  These multiple references back up the information provided by the article and are useful in sending users to corresponding articles which take you straight to the article or page which the Wikipedia article was founded.

References
Multiple Contributors. (March 20, 2012). Reliablity of Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia.
Multiple Contributors. (March 20, 2012). Wikipedia: About. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About.