Wikipedia questions and answers

a. What is Wikipedia? 

•  Its a multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization.

b. How would you answer the question posed in this piece “How reliable can a source be when anyone can edit it?”? 

•  The site is monitored by people all the time, so if there is unreliable information, it will soon be taken off. So, most of the time it can be fairly reliable but you should be prepared if it isn't. 

         c. Who do the creators of Wikipedia place their trust in when it comes to weeding out misinformation?  

•  Wikiscanner

 d. Why did founder Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia? 

•  He believed that it should give more authority to experts; he has since created another site.

e. What would abuse or vandalism look like on a Wikipedia page? 

•  Embarrassing headlines or titles, irrelevant information on the page of the topic.

f. What do the statistics quoted in the third paragraph of this piece reveal? 

•  That its a well known site in many different languages and a total of 8 million articles. It shows that people do use it and that its successful and useful.

g. Why do you think Wikipedia is so successful? 

•  You can get information quick on Wikipedia, its straight to the point and almost effortless. I wouldn't use it for a paper, but if I want to look up something I will use it. 

f. Why might Wikipedia’s creators not want to accept advertising? 

•  It takes away from the information and doesn't make it look reliable and trustworthy. 

i. How does Wikiscanner help increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries?

•  It quickly exposes examples of self-interested editing by prominent businesses and governments around the world. Wikipedia's leaders hailed the device as another check on abuse at the site, even if it produced some embarrassing headlines for a time.