CNET jytdog's profile
jytdog
MEMBER SINCE: September 7, 2011
From Course Hero
some commentary....
who named themselves “123lazyg” or “Jytdog” and also other editors who do not even bother to set up a Wikipedia account. Hence, the lack of qualified expertise on Wikipedia poses a risk of generating less valid knowledge from peers. Moreover, Wikipedia’s unreliability is further accentuated by the restricted framework of its own reliability policy. Under the policy, Wikipedia does not demand its editors to possess any background knowledge of the subject or even fully understand what they are talking about as long as they can provide verifiable information from a reliable source. However, Edwin Black (2010) argues that over-dependency on variability is unhealthy because “what passes for a reliable source can span the spectrum, as any patchwork of policies and weighing measures can discredit the best sources and highlight the worst, depending upon the moment and motive”. Hence, it is extremely difficult for readers to arrive at a comprehensive judgement of an article’s overall accuracy when they have to examine every individual source that was referenced to, instead of being able to simply evaluate the article contributors as their primary source of information. More ironically, Wikipedia discourages dedicated researchers from sharing their own findings because it violates the no original research principle while amateurs can freely edit the article. When comparing the stem cell article on Wikipedia (2014) and Britannica Encyclopedia, the latter source provides a much better insight on the subject because readers can clearly identify Jonathan M.W. Slack (2014), a director of Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota, as the article’s primary contributor who has credentials in the subject area, as opposed to a prolonged list of anonymous users on Wikipedia. Therefore, Wikipedia’s reliability policy can also be regarded as suppressing expert opinion, which is easily the most reliable source of information, and hence substantially decreases its reliability. Furthermore, in the highly unlikely scenario where all the content on Wikipedia articles are provided by specialists, it does not ensure that all information is accurate because information on Wikipedia is often exaggerated and deviates from the truth. In particular, people with ingenuous intensions such as paid advocates can anonymously exploit Wikipedia for selfish purposes. In relation to the article on stem cells, Wikipedia (2014) only listed the disadvantages of stem cell
