To do a search on the Web, different people use different websites or search engines. However, the results from those different search engines are at a large percentage similar; mainly because of the commonality of the content, popularity among web users, and uniqueness of the word or contents being searched. Among the most popular websites that appear as a result of any search, the Wikis are very omnipresent. The wikis are websites in which any web user can post, edit, cut or delete content on any subject (well, except personal ones).
In this blog post, I will examine the discussion and history tabs of two Wikipidia entries. And Feel the need to you as the reader that I do not give credits to any wikipedia entry unless there is a verifiable source of the entry. Also when i comes to humans (as emotional beings) there is no such thing as objectivity. All entries, posts, editing...are somehow biased.
My first subject was the Federal Reserve System. What I have noticed at first, was that the content on the matter was quite abundant. All the part the content were editable without any demand of membership or log in requirement. Nevertheless, I was warned that the IP address of my computer was going to be recorded.
While analyzing the discussion tab of the Federal Reserve System content, I and other users noticed that the very first paragraph was misleading, the information was inaccurate. Many web users also complained about the large amount of information provided for just that one topic.
When it comes the History tab, the content has been edited over 288 times, and each sub-part of the content has been edited at least 4 times. This article ranked 2686 in traffic on en.wikipedia.org.
The second discussion and history Wikipedia entry that I analyzed was the Knights Templar. In the discussion of the knights Templar, the main topic in the discussion page was the date in which the Knights Templar were burned alive. The main debate was based in the fact that in that time, either the Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar was used. Consequently, the use or either calendar would change the date of the Poor Knights Templar's persecution. I also noticed an important but debatable missing subject which is the charge of sodomy by the Pope clement the fifth on the Knights Templar. The history of the Knights Templar entry was edited 162 times and based on the statistics, the web-page has so far 526 watchers.
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It's interesting to me that the Federal Reserve wiki has been edited many times and yet still contains inaccuracies. I alsoappreciated the insinuation of Big Brother in the gathering of IP addresses. The Knights Templar are a timely obsession and echo the Federal Reserve in their pioneering of modern banking. The poor Templars demise was a sad story of greed and corruption over time.
ReplyDeleteI didn't notice that I could access the article's statistics. I wished that I had! I confess I was so interested in the content that I overlooked the potential tools located within the website's framework. It might be interesting to examine if certain articles are viewed and edited more frequently when they are immediately in the public's mind. For example, if Dan Brown published a spectacular mystery focused on the Knights Tempalr, the article might receive more attention and, by extension, extensive edits.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, Rusty, I believe that Wikipedia collects the editor's I.P. address for all of its articles. I don't think that's necessarily Big Brother, unless Big Brother has an immediate interest in the historical consensus over the Third Republic!
I found it strange that people would agrue over the calendar that the Knights Templar use. I agree, it certainly would change many important dates, such as their persecution. How could someone not find hard evidence supporting either case or is it just not even known outside of the wikipedia world?
ReplyDeleteYour post raises an interesting point - do dates really matter? If the only real debate is over which calendar should be cited, why not raise this in the article itself? Any good historian would acknowledge where there is ambiguity. Would a different date change our understanding of the Knights Templar? I was also a bit shocked that the Federal Reserve has not been edited more often. It is the cornerstone of hatred for the Libertarian movement and was at the center of the banking crisis this past year. I would have thought that political hacks would have targeted this as a means to influence popular opinion regarding the Fed.
ReplyDeleteI am a bit confused actually not either article or this summary, but by Prof. Olsen's comment on it.
ReplyDelete"I was also a bit shocked that the Rederal Reserve has not been edited more often. It is the cornerstone of hatred for the Libertarian movement and was at the center of the banking crisis this past year. I would have thought that political hacks would have targeted this as a means to influence popular opinion regarding the Fed."
I'm not sure if I get your meaning, but I think you are saying that the Libertarians who are outspoken on the internet are more likely to be "Political hacks" then their counter parts, or if you're saying that "Political hacks" would want to edit this article for the sake of an arguement, and it's not dependant on political bias.
-Jim Nee