Can WIKIPEDIA Ever Make the Grade?

Can WIKIPEDIA Ever Make the Grade?

The Wikipedia debate in this article intensifies as the creditability of the online encyclopedia is questioned. The grading aspect of Wikipedia is judged based on scholarly perception, as this new age of encyclopedia is met with mixed reviews. Professors are looking to test the actually accuracy of Wikipedia by placing false information within the site to judge the merit of it’s editing process. Simultaneously, while this is going on wikipedians are trying to increase professor involvement in the information and editing process. This article comes to a double edge sword for me because while professor involvement is encouraged, this involvement is met with stern, harsh criticism. It seems to be a losing battle for professors who see a problem but are in a position where they cannot really fix it completely. Wikipedia tries to exercise its objective outlook on content and editing, but that outlook has a very short lived future when you have scholars having their mastery of material being chopped and screwed by self made wikipedians. The sites bias positions on science gives it merit, but what it lacks in other subject areas is what raises eyebrows in the world of academia.
If Wikipedia wants to attain the level of respects it seeks, it should give more respect to the scholars it’s trying to reach out to. No professional would welcome anyone telling them they are doing their job incorrectly, and what they are offering is equivalent to an amateur’s work. My solution to this problem would be to separate Wikipedia and have some type of wiki scholar portion, provided solely for scholar’s to provide their input, without mixing it in with the openness of the rest of the site. Validity of facts may become easier to check if you can compare and contrast the two.

"Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet"

The "Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet" article goes into detail about the wide arrange of ways people can be misled on the web. This article touch bases on: counterfeit website, suspicious websites, news, disinformation, subject specific misinformation, fictitious sites, parodies and spoofs, entertainment, news groups, hacks, and picking up where another person left off. This articles talks about how counterfeit websites pass themselves off as the real legit site, while having subliminal links and messages to content that would be unrelated to the actual content of the real site. In a sense counterfeit sites give the real sites a bad reputation. Suspicious websites are those sites that are put out there that we don’t want to really believe in because of their content and set up. There are simply there to mislead us with false information. When dealing with the news even they are guilty and susceptible to false information. People are grabbing whatever information that isn’t credible and publishing it as news without actually checking deeper into the facts. This article continues on about how there are several ways of publishing misinformation in a variety ways. Whether it is humorous or malicious misleading is the ultimate aim.
I honestly feel after reading this article that everything I consume on the internet should be more thoroughly looked into. There is a lot of content that can easily be passed as the real or altered to mislead someone into thinking or believing something that is misrepresented in some way. I think this type of information should be required for everyone to know because there can be a great deal of damage done if someone is not carefully about the content that is consumed on the internet. I also feel there should be some type of sanctions against these individuals that are publishing this false content. I understand people have a freedom of speech, but when that freedom damages of endangers the freedoms of others there needs to be some type of punishment.