After reading a lengthy Wikipedia article and participating in the ensuing discussion this week, my English instructor proceeded to prompt my class members and me to register on the website and edit one of its pages. Though she later spilled that she was kidding, the idea of such a task provoked a few unpleasant emotions within me. The site is designed so that any registered user with further knowledge on a given subject can edit that page’s information to make the information more valuable for all Wikipedia users. I likely would be capable of performing such a task, but I do not feel that I have the proper authority to be editing information that the whole world could potentially access and use. The site does have many authorities who review edits and their justifications, but it worries me that information I might post could somehow be inaccurate or could mislead anyone who may choose to cite the data before the editors reviewed it. I personally would question the validity of a source edited by someone of my credentials, so I wouldn’t want others to unknowingly accept my input as fact either.
However, if I were to edit a Wikipedia page, I would edit the page about my hometown. The Caledonia, Michigan section of Wikipedia seems to accurately reflect the town, but it lacks much information and is slightly out of date. I would update statistics and add more facts about the town itself, aside from simply the school district and athletics which are the primary discussion right now. The demographics section of the page contains information about the village of Caledonia, which is only a tiny portion of the entire town. I would include further statistics to also represent the population reflected within the school district and the town as a whole. Information about what recreational activities are available in the town might also be useful for visitors to the page, and I could be the one to add such data. Despite my hesitations about editing Wikipedia, I could potentially provide useful information about Caledonia, Michigan if I were to register at the site and modify the wiki accordingly.
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I agree with you that we must always question the credibility of articles found on Wikipedia. However, I think it has come a long way and gained a lot more respect than it used to have. For instance, in my freshman year in high school it was taboo to even think about using Wikipedia for anything school related. Nowadays, teachers encourage the use of Wikipedia as a place to start looking for information. Also, the majority of articles on the site are cited and contain references, allowing people to find general information on Wikipedia and then actually access the original articles.
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