Reading #2

Wikipedia a general large source of information used by many people has been on the decline. It peaked in 2009, but has been losing users and article authors/editors. The cause of this decline can be attributed to many reasons. One of the main reasons that stood out from the reading was Wikipedia's new process of accepting posts and edits. Wikipedia used to allow complete freedom on editing and publishing articles on their website. After a real, alive person was defamed in one of the articles recently, they enforced the same filter they do for significant people like President Obama. Posts and edits now must be reviewed by Wikipedia before they make it to page. Another reason for a decrease in edits and posts is a possible peak in knowledge. You can search just about anything and find some kind of posting about it on Wikipedia and it just seems like 'knowledge' has reached it's cap.

I believe because of these two reasons that Wikipedia is becoming just a bit more of a reliable, credible source of information. It is still a great source to get a quick general idea of a topic, but because there is now a filter before publication then you can trust it a little more. The issue still is what is this filter? Are the people filtering the post reliable and what makes them a credible source to filter and edit? The proof of credibility is still yet to be figured out. Even though credibility may not be there up front for Wikipedia it is a good source because it provides related links at the end of most articles. These links lead to the source of some of the information and some of the links are credible and reliable. It is how I find information for my papers and research. If I see information in a Wikipedia article that I like I will scroll to the bottom and try to find the same information in the provided links.