Wikipedia is hilarious… sorta
In doing some Wikipedia research last week on Bill O’Reilly, I found this little snippet of vandalism right under the “Politics” sub-section after four, well-constructed paragraphs: “Bill O’Reilly is also a douche who should never express his right winged opinion ever again.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at the little activist fellow who snuck that one in. The change in cadence was hilarious. And while I love Wikipedia, I do admit it that it takes an intelligent reader to spot entry vandalism on controversial subjects. Hence, you have to be a pretty savvy individual to spot the good from the bad. Furthermore, reports indicate that the reading level for the site is on a 10th grader level, much higher than the 6-8th grader level of most national publications. But more often than not, however, Wikipedia works like a balanced and well-written charm. It’s the closest “no spin zone” I’ve found on the internet.
See also:
5 Comments
Which concerns me. My children use this tool for elementary/Junior High/Senior High research. Not sure I’m sold on free-form, user-generated information. That said, not sure that the editorial boards of traditional information sources will always be better.
@ first david,
I didn’t. 🙂 But the point is it’s still vandalism thus hurting the quality of Wikipedia.
@ David Rogers,
That’s a dilemma I currently don’t have to deal with as my daughter is only 16 months old. It would appear that for children, Britanica thus would be a better, albeit slower source of information for adolescence. Interesting commentary.
Wikipedia is really inconsistent. Some of it is great info, and I use Wikipedia often, but there is plenty of info from people on an agenda.
I agree with your statement
“It’s the closest ‘no spin zone’ I’ve found on the internet.”
Most other places online you will see a lot more bias and the author usually has some agenda, which isn’t necessarily bad, unless it is presented as being objective. However on Wikipedia you can generally trust that no one is trying to sell you anything or convince you of their point of view.
But the question is .. did you fix it?