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Astroturfing on Wikipedia

Astroturfing on Wikipedia

As Wikipedia is currently the number 7 most visited website in the world according to Alexa, and a major source of information for all layers of society, it makes sense to engage in a critical review of its benefits,...

The semantic web versus Wikipedia?

From the day of birth of the Wikipedia project, the online encyclopedia has been a highly controversial case. The debates range from information accuracy (including the inquiry of the information-knowledge relation once again) to the pyramidic usermodel (often undermined...

Response to sarahnats: What is Causing the Decline in Wikipedia Participation?

This short article is a response to sarahnats’ article “What is Causing the Decline in Wikipedia Participation”? You can see this short article as a further extension of her argumentation structure and my own experience of adding information to...

The Wiki Beehive

Generally Wikipedia is praised for it’s collective driven overload of information. “Britannica’s biggest errors are of omission, not commission. It’s shallow in some categories and out of date in many others. And then there are the millions of entries...

Speaking Hedberg to Italians

“I saw a commercial on late night TV, it said, ‘Forget everything you know about slipcovers!’ So I did. It was a load off my mind! Then the commercial tried to sell me slipcovers, but I didn’t know what...

Wikipedia: Quality control

Wiki is powerful non profit and ads-free online model for sharing information and knowledge outside of traditional information sources.  It is free, accessible to anyone, not only for search and use but also for contribution and editing. Wiki’s template...

What are possible consequences of Wikipedia for the future of human knowledge?

Two of the most important features of Wikipedia are the history pages and the discussion pages. Wikipedia not only contain the facts, but it also records and contributes to the politicization and dissemination of scientific research and communication. It...

Wikipedia changes our perception of knowledge

Wikipedia differs greatly with the traditional encyclopedia. Examples of aspects of differentiation: · Broader public: knowledge is for everyone. · Authority: everyone can write for Wikipedia. · Broader range of subjects: everyone can decide what is important to be...

Wikipedia, we want the truth?

I am a student of the new millennium. That means that I rarely go to a library building, I hardly use books made out of paper and the reference lists on the bottom of my school papers  look very...

Wikipedia Laundry List

It’s easy to love wikipedia. Especially once you’ve joined its fold, embraced the ethos, and gotten the satisfying pay off of adding a page to its massive index. Enthusiasm aside, here’s nine thoughts on research-rich areas for the future...

Are you a murderer according to Wikipedia?

In December 2005 BBC reported that “the free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica.” (1) The study of Wikipedia’s reliability was conducted by the British journal Nature which examined a range of...
The road not taken, the entry left blank

The road not taken, the entry left blank

Bacalar Chico National Park and Marine Reserve is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Belize, home of jaguars, manatees, and the largest nesting grounds for sea turtles in Belize, and contains the only spot along the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef...

Wikipedia: on the Value of Information and the Concept of Censorship

It’s a fact that people more and more gather information from the internet and other digital sources instead of learning -to master- that information. What will be the long term effects of this development? Does the posibility to search...

Wikipedia Art: a case of study

Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern are two American artists who launched a new entry in Wikipedia, called Wikipedia Art, the last 14th of February, 2009. Their proposal was a conceptual work that allowed people to alter the page as...

The Language Barrier in Wikipedia

No one can deny the fact that the widely use of Wikipedia all over the world nowadays. In order to make all people use Wikipedia freely, now it already has different versions of a large number of languages. As...
What is Causing the Decline in Wikipedia Participation?

What is Causing the Decline in Wikipedia Participation?

Wikipedia is considered to be the largest online database of information. Launched in 2001, Wikipedia has had exponential growth and have celebrated it’s 3 millionth article in August 2009. However, in the past month, both Times Magazine and Fast...
Ich don’t think so, or different viewpoints on Wikipedia entries

Ich don’t think so, or different viewpoints on Wikipedia entries

Although the homepage of Wikipedia invites one to participate in the growth process of Wikipedia, this notion is being prevented by different thresholds. For instance there is the threshold of the technical; as easy as it is to click...
Is Wikipedia too Encyclopedic?

Is Wikipedia too Encyclopedic?

While I was creating and editing the “Hijab Tax”-entry, I noticed that Wikipedia is still ‘just’ an encyclopedia, in spite of its mission; As an encyclopedia building project, Wikipedia seeks to create a summary of all human knowledge: all...

Wikipedia assignment: Is ‘WikiTrust’ the next step towards a more reliable online-encyclopaedia?

Once again the online-encyclopaedia Wikipedia is in the spotlight of attention; after years of various forms of praise, critique and academic studies – in which several different and overlapping aspects of Wikipedia have been discussed – the encyclopaedia has...

De-botting wikipedia

Wikipedia is praised for its open “everybody can contribute” system and it’s collaborative knowledge production. An environment that is seemingly built by human editors, but where in fact bots do much of the work. Since 2002, Wikipedia entries...
The great power of a Wikipedia sysop

The great power of a Wikipedia sysop

A sysop (as a system operator) is a controversial actor in Wikipedia. The term sysop means an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online virtual community. In the Wikipedia world,...
The accuracy or inaccuracy of Wikipedia

The accuracy or inaccuracy of Wikipedia

The accuracy of information on Wikipedia is one of the most fundamental points for it’s success. Previous research has shown that Wikipedia uses Google to check entries of their users on accuracy. After some research I also found out...
Does Wikipedia bore you: from Visual Flaw to Limitation

Does Wikipedia bore you: from Visual Flaw to Limitation

Wikipedia is widely known as an online text dictionary. At the same time visuals are hardly used. Though Wikipedia is now publishing its beta version, which offers relatively more modern interface, it is far from engaging the rest of...

White lies and orange experts: WikiTrust

For a long time, online encyclopedia Wikipedia has been criticized for not being a fully reliable source; anyone is able to edit the encyclopedia anonymously, dis- and misinformation can be posted and might even persist. There is no consistent...