The World and Wikipedia: How We Are Editing Reality Part 2

"First reason why we love Wikipedia. We love it because it's a virtual nation, or rather virtual world...the people of this virtual world, can be as shy and anonymous as we like, and yet our work, good and bad, is listed and others can explore it. We may seldom speak to one another, yet our paths cross unforeseeably" (Dalby 120). The internet has allowed our whole world to connect with each other through websites, blogs, social networks, and so much more. These various internet sources have given people the ability to express their thoughts and opinions to friends, and even anonymously to strangers. Perhaps this is one reason why Wikipedia is so popular, because anyone can anonymously create a Wikipedia topic page or edit and make changes to established pages. People in our society today are more likely to be less inhibited when interacting on the internet, probably due to the fact that there is no actual face to face interaction. Therefore, many 'Wikipedians' as they call themselves, create and edit Wikipedia articles to share knowledge on topics that others want to know about or research. The problem with using Wikipedia as a source of information is that "the articles, which are supposed to become definitive and stable, are in reality endlessly mutable" (pg. 164). The way I see it, a Wikipedia article is basically an ongoing collection of data that various people wrote about because either they have found data on it or claim to have knowledge of it. "Articles get longer because it's easier to go on writing than to compress what one has written; it's easier to write than to edit what others have written; and it's easier to write than to get into a dispute over deleting what other people have written" (pg. 181). Hence, Wikipedia articles turn into a hodgepodge of information, but this could also be something that attracts users to keep using Wikipedia. "Reading Wikipedia is just like using the web...We read half a page, we see a blue link, we click on it and start reading another page" (pg. 216). The fact that so much information is available on one site is definitely a major reason in why I and probably many other people use it as well. Wikipedia has introduced itself as one of our society's major internet research source, and we should embrace it for what it has to offer, but also take into consideration that it shouldn't be our main or only source of gaining information.