Wickipedia

In this assignment, we were asked to research information on Wickipedia. Wickipedia is an online encyclopedia. It is a multi sourced piece of information. It is not checked by factual information. It is maintained by the users themselves and manipulated by individuals and/or companies. Anyone has the ability to go in and delete or add information, and this is not illegal! The whole source of information given by Wickipedia has often been proven inaccurate. There were a lot of examples given such as salary comparisons with Wal-mart and other companies. All of this tends to make me think that it is not the most reliable source of information, so why would I use it?

Business and individual parties can use it for personal, business or political reasons. They can "doctor" their image by embellishing the positive things and deleting the negative things. As a user of Wickipedia, I would like for the information to be more accurate, so I could trust it and rely on it for decisions that I may need to make. As long as this continues, I do not know that Wickipedia will ever be a trusted resource. Virgil Griffith did create a tool called the Wickipedia Scanner. This is a device used to trace comments or edits made back to the original source. So now, the ones who thought they were editing anonymously are now known. It allows a way to find out who changed what. I think this was an excellent thing done by Virgil. However, I wondered what good it does if it is not illegal to change things in Wickipedia. Personally, I just don't think it is a reliable source and it is one I personally will not be using for retrieving information. For more information on Wickipedia, please visit www.npr.org.