User:Mbelden1/draft

This is what I have so far for the Argumentative Paper.

= Wikipedia, the good and the bad =

Wikipedia is an online database where people can share their knowledge on a variety of subjects. This platform is free and allows anyone to make changes and edits. This website, founded in 2001, is home to over 6 million articles. Naturally, with that many articles, there is bound to be some issues here and there. Wikipedia is neither good, nor bad. Instead, it is a nice base that you can start researching on.

Wikipedia is known for its vast amount of knowledge on various topics. It is home to articles spanning from Covid-19 to rural countries. No matter what you’re looking for, it’s almost guaranteed that you can find it on Wikipedia. With this much knowledge at your fingertips, it surely is a plus. To further prove this point,  Elizabeth Nix uses herself as an example. Elizabeth Nix is a college professor that uses Wikipedia. In her article she talks about the importance of steering students towards reliable sources and how Wikipedia is really good for research. She uses herself and her students as an example. In the article, she goes on to mention how her students “found it to be one of the most stimulating” and most useful exercises of the semester (Nix).

Although Wikipedia has all of these amazing pros, there are also the unavoidable cons. Since Wikipedia is a free database, you will definitely run into trolls. These trolls could change important information that can change an article as a whole. Along with this, you can have conflict of interests. A good example of this, would be Tenebrae. Tenebrae is one of Wikipedia’s most known editors. Tenebrae, Frank Lovece, was recently under fire for deadnaming a drag queen. For two years, he used Peppermint’s deadname because he believed that “one’s birth name is a fact and belongs here” (Cockram). In the article about this scandal, it was also reported that he fought to “add [her] deadname to the biography, doing so around 20 times” (Cockram). This is a problem because he is deliberately fighting to deadname this celebrity and this is a direct attack towards this trans celebrity. It was reported that she even requested to have her deadname taken off of the article but Lovece refused.

No matter how you try, you will never be able to rid Wikipedia of the bad. Luckily, there is more than enough good to overpower the bad. With there being enough editors that fight to make sure the information on the site is credited and notable,  the general public won’t have to worry one bit. Because of these editors, Wikipedia has been able to become a place that is perfect for research. All you can do is take the good with the bad and double check your facts if you feel something is shady.