Response to "Know It All"

I think that this article on Wikipedia is very interesting. It shows how different this online encyclopedia is from any other source of information in the world. It holds so much information in so many different languages and anyone can access it for free. "The promise of the Internet is free knowledge for everyone," and I agree with that statement. I think that the idea Jimmy Wales had for an encyclopedia that everyone could access and edit was very innovative and something that we all have benefitted from. I have never edited an article on Wikipedia but I have visited the site countless times and have used it as a start to research and just to gain knowledge on a topic. Wikipedia shows how much the internet has changed the world and how different this technology can make our lives. It also has an impact on our education and the things we do in school. For research projects, some may object to the use of this online encyclopedia that anyone can change. There is some conflict over using Wikipedia as a reliable source, especially since anyone can alter the information that is presented on the site.

The fact that anyone can change or edit the information on the site makes it very different from any other place where one would get material. Because of this some things can be hard to trust when found on Wikipedia. It also says something about the creator of the site that he has edited his own article on Wikipedia eighteen times in one year. This shows that even he has a problem with the whole truth being out there. He does not care about having all the facts straight on his biography, but I do not know if this necessarily means that he does not want the truth put out on the rest of the website. He may only care about this because it is about himself and he does not to be associated with pornography. So I kind of think that it's not that big of a deal that he does not want that information posted about himself, but it is the truth.

I also found it funny that one of the top contributors of the website turned out to be a total phony. Essjay, who claimed to be a professor of religion with a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law, ended up being a twenty-four year old with no degrees to speak of. He was living a lie on Wikipedia, claiming to have credentials and gaining praise for his additions to the website. This shows how easily the Internet can be used to give oneself a false identity and to make claims that are no where near the truth. On the Internet, you can be whoever you want to be and you can post whatever information you want to be out there. This is what makes Wikipedia a sometimes unreliable place to go for the information that you would want to be completely accurate.