Wednesday's Wacky Wikipedia Response

Yes there are people who "patrol" the Wikipedia site and look for false claims. People or "patrolers"who have accounts on Wiki can easily make changes to anything that they do not approve of. Whether if its massivley offensive and slanderous to society in it's legal terms like what John Seigenthaler experienced from the Wiki-users or minorily offensive to some people based upon their own personal beliefs just like what Andy thought of the "Ghost rider" Article. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ghost_ride)

It is clear that Wikipedia is trying the best it can to locate its people who write these slanderous posts, like the ones made in the Siegenthaler article and the NPR audio clip. Its very difficult to locate the people who posts stuff because you do not know who posted what in what area. Even though you do know someone did edit the site due to the users blog. Even though you are more likely to locate any discourse community, it may never really be accurate due to many innacurate or non-up-to-date responses.

Response for Wednesday: Wikipedia and Bias

After reading both the Siegenthaler essay and listening to the NPR audio clip, search Wikipedia again to find out how the site deals with bias or incorrect information. Are there people who "patrol" the site and look for false claims? What can users do if they find wrong or biased info? Basically, what is Wikipedia doing to react to claims like the ones made in the Siegenthaler article and the NPR audio clip?

--ejfleitz

Wikipedia

I found wikipedia to be an extremely useful tool. This is a particular site that I had never been on before. I searched Presidential candidates, and the content that I got was awesome. The thing that caught my eye was current events they gave me as well as explanations for Presidential candidates.

Wiki

Two main characteristics that an effective Wikipedia entry would have are some sort of writing protection like the main page which can only be edited by administration or as in the case with Al Gore’s page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gore
Where it is semi-protected and only registered users my change the page. This allows for better control on who can edit the page and to prevent vandalism to popular pages.
Another characteristic are clear citations on where the information on the Wikipedia entry are from. This gives credibility to the page and also offers other sources to research the topic.

Monday's Response

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/college_football One characteristic I found effective was the graphic use of photos. The illustrative pictures kept me captivated and interested in messages and history of football. Another effective aspect of the site I found effective was the links to history, the beginnings or roots to football and key players of the history.

Monday Response

The entry that I entered into the wikipedia website was http://en.www.wikipedia.org/w. iki/film. After checking this entry and some of its features, I found that some of its most important feature included the title information and the external links page. I feel that these two features are two of the most important ones to look into when checking out an entry in wikipedia. One of the features is a detailed history of whatever the subject is while the external links section is list of website links that are arranged in no particular order and vary in length. Both of these features allow users that are researching or browsing the subject to have easily organized access to whatever it is they are researching.