User:Wiki in Culture

Wikipedia is an online user-edited encyclopedia that has become a sort of pop-culture phenomenon. With over 2.7 million English articles, students and Internet users alike use for easy information even when they shouldn’t. There are many debates on whether Wikipedia can be considered

Truth: information a knowledge community has decided upon as correct
Or whether or not it adds to:

Biases
We like Wikipedia. A lot. We use it, even when we know we shouldn’t.

Darlene Belen
Uses Wikipedia for:
 * Looking up TV shows
 * Denney projects / Vocab
 * Random Physics information
 * The Wiki game

Lauren Leeber
Uses Wikipedia for:
 * Looking at Anatomy
 * Denney Vocab
 * Random medical information
 * Art RWB pages
 * Wikipedia vandalism

Rebecca Worrell
Uses Wikipedia for:
 * Art RWB pages
 * Denney projects / Vocab
 * Looking into the sordid lives of artists/musicians
 * Procrastinaton (i.e. clicking random links)
 * Sadly, now has 2 Wikipedia usernames

Wikipedia: an AOK?
A Theory of Knowledge Area of Knowledge is defined as:
 * 1) Having a history
 * 2) Having a social editing process
 * 3) Is written down.

Technically, Wikipedia satisfies all these conditions.

Claim
So, can we consider Wikipedia an AOK? It satisfies all the conditions, plus, it is an easily accessible knowledge community that is constantly being edited by users. However, it seems that that can not be the only things that define an AOK, because our instincts tell us that Wikipedia simply could not be on par with Science, History or Math. So, what really defines an AOK?

Counter-Claim
An obvious difference between Wikipedia and the familiar AoKs is the lack of specificity. Wikipedia holds a wide variety of information on any subject. While an AoK also has a variety of information, the knowledge ultimately relates to the specific AoK. There is also a certain passion and dedication associated with experts within an AoK that we assume to be lacking in Wikipedia. In order to add knowledge to an AoK, a person must prove their dedication by studying in a subject for several years. Wikipedia bypasses this show of passion and dedication by allowing anyone with a username to add or edit knowledge.

Claim
Many people have a low opinion of Wikipedia because of its lack of depth regarding the information posted. Wikipedia generally does not have the carefully researched and dependable information that text books or scholarly research papers have. Even when users do post scholarly material, the format of a Wikipedia page discourages extensive and in depth information on a particular subject. As a result, people who rely solely on Wikipedia for knowledge do not have a complete understanding of the subjects they research.

Deep Knowledge
Possesses a thorough understanding of a topic, how it’s used and how it comes about and has the ability to make inferences and add to the knowledge community.

Counter-Claim
On the other hand, does our culture not encourage this type of method of gaining knowledge? People who do not know a variety of shallow information may run the risk of being branded as “ignorant”. We are expected to be fairly knowledgeable on a variety of topics, such as politics, technology, health, and current events, because of our easy access to information. An in depth knowledge of all these subjects would be incredibly difficult and impractical. Wikipedia's brief and easily obtained information is a convenient way to cope with the expectations set up by our culture.

Valley Girl vs Northover: are we biased against the way knowledge is presented?
It appears that it is not the knowledge presented in Wikipedia that we view as untrustworthy, or we would not use it so often as a hidden resource, but rather the fact that any web-user can edit it. So, although we have no problem with the knowledge presented, we have biases against the way the knowledge is presented to us. The fact that most of the knowledge appears to be true makes us trust it less, for we could be tricked into believing something that only looked true. For example, we are less bothered by:

OmG!!!!! I lOoK So HoT rIgHt NoW!!!!!
(Which just provokes eye-rolling and most can’t even be bothered to edit it out)

The most important part of a TOK presentation is the visual aid.
(Which is hard to tell whether or not it is true)

However, this bias is not only against Wikipedia, but other forms of knowledge as well. Think of the presentations we see in class. We are less likely to trust someone who stands up and speaks in a valley girl accent with text-ism, punctured by “umm…”, “yeah”, and “like…”’s, even though what she may be saying could be completely true. However, someone else could be speaking complete falsehoods, yet we might trust everything that they say simply because it is said with a high vocabulary.

This may be the result again, of the huge amounts of information available to us through the internet and other sources. Because of the ease of finding information, and the ease of that same information being false, we put up walls towards this information, biases against presentations that we know usually lead to false information.

Wikipedia and You: would you edit yourself?
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word---wikiality

Wikilobbying and Wikiality Microsoft would edit their own wiki page. Living people would edit their own wiki page. Create false reality.   So, now that you know the biases and the problems about Wikipedia I have a question for you. If there was a Wikipedia page about you, what would it say? If you got to write it what would you include? Would you include that embarrassing comment you made freshman year? How about a picture of that bad haircut your mom made you get in 5th grade? If you could write your own biography, what sort of spin would you put on it? Are you the hero or the villain? It's human nature to want to make ourselves seem more impressive. We tell little white lies to "enhance" our stories. Plus, no one wants their most embarrassing moments pixelated for all to see. In conclusion, shouldn't we all just be honest?

In this reality we created...
Today, around lunch time, three intelligent, beautiful, and witty girls gave a presentation to their peers (it is important to note that one of these girls had red hair). After their presentation, the teacher was so in awe of the hard work and thought that went into this wonderful presentation. He noted the sheer brilliance of their claims as well as counter claims and commented that all other presentations would fail in comparison to this marvelous example of a Theory of Knowledge presentation. He thought about the fact that this group was the first to go, which meant they had little time to pull it all together also, they had no group to show them what to do and what not to do. As he looked once more at his most intelligent students, as he recalled their semantic definitions and concrete references to both AoKs and WoKs, he saw a bright a beautiful future for all three of them, this realization culminated in a perfect score on their ToK presentation and ultimately success in the years to come.