Blog Entry #4

Wikipedia Part 1

For this entry I will begin understanding the writings of Andrew Dalby in his book “The World and Wikipedia: How we are editing reality.” Throughout the first half of this book, Dalby does a great job explaining where wikipedia came from, and the advantages and disadvantages of it, while also proposing why we decide to use it based on these factors.

Dalby starts his book using examples of how wikipedia can help contribute reliable information into our lives.  First, he starts with explaining the interest of a law student in Chile who made many corrections to the Spanish Wikipedia.  Dalby uses this student as an example of valuable information being contributed to the wikipedia page.  After an earthquake in Chile, a Wikipedia page was developed for the issue in under an hour.  As data and statistics began to be added to the page, by intelligent researchers such as this Chilean law study, the page begins to become a credible quantitative and qualitative source of information.

While the Internet source also represents disadvantages in its use, Dalby talks about a Wikipedia user who was not contributing completely true information.  The user “kegking213” had set up and account and started adding false information or contributing to pages that were not necessarily anything he knew about.  Although Wikipedia is a very accessible source of information it is not guaranteed that everything written is 100% true.  For this particular reason, many teachers and researchers debate it whether it can be utilized as a credible scholarly source.

Throughout the second chapter, Dalby begins examining where an encyclopedia such as where wkipedia came from, and more specifically the three traditions of books.  The first tradition starts with a Romanian soldier, Pliny the Elder, being a friend of Emperor Vespasian, he was also avid in collecting knowledge.  During this time, the encyclopedia was better known as the ‘circle of knowledge’ and Pliny was one who contributed to this type of book. Pliny was a very hard worker and known for making excerpts of everything he read. The second tradition was referred to as, the dictionary.  It was a list of words in alphabetical order. During this time dictionaries related more to a Greek lifestyle.  From 1499 to 1619, the alphabetical encyclopedia was being used to reach a sensible and obvious conclusion. Dalby states that in 1499, at the beginning of their frequent use, “there had been some question as to whether huge medieval encyclopedic manuals like those of Vincent Beauvais…could really serve as reference sources in the modern world” (page 24).  As the new alphabetic format continued to be used the third example of the modern encyclopedia came about, the source book.

While attempting to continue the circle of knowledge’ theme, many changes were made in attempts to have the best possible reference of information.  Through this tradition, computerized text searching was invented and eventually the electronic encyclopedia was available in two forms.  As the CD-ROMs also brought about their own problems and finally today you see the wkipedia model of a computer reference.

While providing its advantages and disadvantages, and the background of encyclopedias, Dalby’s book also gives many reasons, based on these principles, as to why people believe in it and continue to use it.  As we have intelligently attempted to develop a ‘circle of knowledge’ to refer to, we have begun to rely on a source of information whose reliability is debated.  The reason for our frequent reference to this website is rooted in the troubles we had when attempting to make it the easiest reference to use.  As the encyclopedia became bigger, it became more expensive to produce, harder to revise, and it took up more space.  Dalby’s book, The World and Wikipedia, provides a helpful understanding of website wikipedia, its pros and cons, where it came from, and why it is so frequently used.