WIKI WIKI

The second part of Andrew Dalby’s book touches on how the larger society reacts to Wikipedia. Most love fear and hate the site for a single reason; being able to write anything a person wants and get there name and ideas out on the Internet. Anyone writing anything allows for the widespread of knowledge and for people to edit and delete information which is not accurate, this helps to regulate and keep the site, in theory, accurate. Not having to wait for an editor to approve the work or a deadline for the article to print means Wikipedia can be constantly updated and changed almost immediately after an event occurs. These reasons mentioned by Dalby do one additional thing, which should be taken into account when entering the site; constant updates and corrections help to transform the Wikipedia page from an information site to a community of users.
In fact two communities exist, that of constant and active users and that of laypeople, the casual reader who goes to the site for information. The first community is established by things such as user names, and ranks on the page site, for instance becoming an administrator, and the constant bickering between users. By participating in such ways people can create an identity on the site, an identity which can be anyone from anywhere. A high school dropout can feel like a professor on the site by updating and changing information, making him an authority figure. Allowing people to create identities along with a hierarchy changes Wikipedia from a simple encyclopedia to an Internet community; the active site users join and constantly update to feel as though they are a part of something. “I felt I was a part of a community with a common goal” quotes Dalby on page one hundred and twenty seven. A major concern here is the word goal; the sits’ goal comes from its active users, and the intention of the site becomes dependent on these people. Having a common goal, separates the casual users who just want the information to the addicted users who want to feel a part of something larger than themselves. This need for control can attribute for the constant updates, additions and deletions on the site. The constant users manipulate and alter information to make it form the community rather than an outsider. Daly explains this phenomenon when he writes “Insiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it’s outsides who provide nearly all of the content” (page 145). This in turn hurts the second part of the Wikipedia community, the person who just wants information. The information they want has been subjected to the communities’ changes and opinions, and someone who goes to the site in each of something unknowingly becomes subjected to the internal community. It then becomes important for this reader to know where the information is coming from and how it got there, which the site does allow. However, few readers will take the time to search references and footnotes, and without knowing it read subjective rather than objective information.