User:RM395/Course/Week 02/Group2

=Group Members= The man, the myth, the legend: Harold Nunn --Thepresidenthal (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Eng395jy  --Eng395jy (talk) 16:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

--Brodmont (talk) 16:38, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Matt Cooper, username mdcoope3 --Mdcoope3 (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

kslinker5493

=Topic=

The vision of the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization behind Wikipedia) is "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
 * What does this mission mean to you?
 * To what extent does Wikipedia meet or fall short of the goals implied in this statement?
 * Would you change anything about the Vision?

=Your Task=

As a group, come up with one cohesive response to the Topic and its questions. Your response should address all of the questions, but not as a mutually exclusive list (e.g. what the mission means to you is tied in with how you see Wikipedia meeting or falling short of its goals). The only communication you should have with your group members is that which takes place here on Wikipedia (not in the classroom).

=Response=

This needs to be "one cohesive response" Please use the sections below and we can merge our answers together.

What does this mission mean to you?
Wikipedia's vision statement is "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." But the question here is "What does this mission mean to you?" Just to point it out, a vision and a mission are not the same. Usually a mission (vision?) is how you see the end point or goal. A mission is what you plan to do about it. It is simply the exchange of ideas, see figure 1a.

It's always important to think through how our advances in technology can make the world a better place, and this is definitely an attempt at that. Whether it is a good idea or a bad idea, a success or an epic fail; I think it's cool what they are trying to do. This mission implies that everyone has the freedom and the ability to contribute to public knowledge and also can have access to this body of information. It does not necessarily mean that every person takes advantage of this opportunity, but it does mean that they have the ability to do so.

To what extent does Wikipedia meet or fall short of the goals implied in this statement?
The extent to which Wikipedia falls short is two-fold: On one hand, it is completely idealistic to state that one resource can possess all knowledge, even though the density of Wikipedia's content is impressive. Also, the idea that all humans will share this knowledge and universally agree from all perspectives is unrealistic. It's impossible to ever get people to agree on anything. That's why this is doomed to fail. They've done a better job than most would have thought possible though.

Every person does have access to the site given that it is free and open to the public. However, there are issues when it comes to computer access, Internet access, and the ability to edit the pages. Some people may or may not be able to do these things which would imply that Wikipedia falls short of the goals implied in the statement to an extent.

Would you change anything about the Vision?
We don't believe that changing the vision is very essential but we would like to point out that not everyone has access to social technology therefore the vision has not much room for change.

Not only does every person need access to a computer and internet, but they also need a general knowledge base that would allow them to understand how to edit a page and to understand the logistics of the site. Especially for older generations at this point, that is also going to be a problem.