Week 2: Individual grading.
Individual grades (10 points available) for the week will be most largely determined by your timely posting of a well reasoned essay supporting your assigned position. Your participation in the week’s discussion is an important factor to consider as well, as is your ability to use new media tools (currently only your WordPress blog and Twitter account) to communicate effectively with your instructor and classmates.
The verdict.
After being very discouraged by the late and missing essays early during the week, I was very pleased with the ultimate outcome in John’s and Chad’s essays. Both made very reasonable and cogent points.
I note that the con side was at a disadvantage throughout the week in that fewer of the con team members posted essays or participated in the discussion.
John’s essay focused on two issues vital to Wikipedia’s credibility: verification and transparency. The matter of verification concerns what rules Wikipedia establishes for editing and approving articles. The matter of transparency concerns to what degree we can be sure that Wikipedia adheres to those rules. John questions both Wikipedia’s verification process and the ability of its editors to follow their own rules. The examples he gives and the information he provides regarding the relatively small number of Wikipedia editors and their somewhat sketchy identities and practices are persuasive.
Chad, of course, disagrees. He cites, quite rightly, the large number of rules Wikipedia editors have to guide their deliberations and how these editors must only rarely make controversial or harsh decisions regarding article content – as they did when they chose to ban IPs associated with the Church of Scientology. Chad then turns our attention from the process of Wikipedia article verification to the product: a wide variety of articles that have broad popularity and remarkable accuracy.
I note that Chad’s essay is formatted to be more easily read than John’s. (And Chad does get a few extra points for using the xkcd image.)
After reading both essays and considering the contributions of all class members, I am awarding this week’s extra credit (+1 point) to the (underdog) con side. The pro position essays had more style, perhaps, but substance was on the con side.
While I can be persuaded that the bulk of Wikipedia articles are popular, useful, and valuable, I remained concerned about those controversial topics and articles that are thrown into Wikipedia committee deliberations. In such cases, who watches the watchmen? While Wikipedia’s editing and approval process may be good enough for most things, it may not be good enough for the most important things; as John notes, cracks in that process have already begun to appear.
June 12, 2009 at 7:34 pm
I fixed the links in my article, I’m learning more about editing the blogs as we go along. Do you know how to indent in the blogs?
June 12, 2009 at 9:09 pm
What I find more dangerous than the POV issues that arise from hotly debated (and frequently revised) articles are the blatant errors that sit in less controversial articles. If there’s no controversy, nobody is fact checking.
June 12, 2009 at 9:15 pm
1. I wouldn’t indent the paragraphs; just put a clear space (line return) between them. I often write my posts in a word processor, then cut and paste to put into WordPress.
2. Yes, I think those are the two main areas of concern: articles that get too much (political) attention, and articles that get too little (or no) attention. I do think, however, that over time there is the opportunity that the Wikipedia process can fix both sorts. Question is how long that time will take and how do we know when, if ever, it has taken place.