Wikipedia - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

For the first time ever I contributed to Wikipedia!  I edited a stub article on the Henneke Horse Body Condition Scoring System.  Horses are my passion so it was nice to share my knowlegde on a subject that has personal meaning to me.  My edits included adding two sections on the Ideal Body Condition Score and Contributing Factors to a horse's body condition.  I also edited the introduction to add references and a table.  I use Wikipedia often so adding to the content felt like giving back to the online community and it increased my understanding of the pros and cons of Wikipedia.





My Wikipedia entry on Henneke Horse Body Condition Scoring
Hayley Kosolofski. (2012). My Wikipedia Entry, Retrieved 22/03/2012,
from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henneke_horse_body_condition_scoring_system.

  The positives are the many diverse topics that are available and easily accessible online.  It was mentioned in my ALES 204 lecture that Wikipedia places too much emphasis on popular culture topics which outweighs more scientific topics.  I think this is more reflective of the nature of Wikipedia.  It is an opportunity for all kinds of people to come together and share their knowledge.  An information source that is so dependent on people should contain information that is more relevant to most people.  So while the article on lightsabres is longer than the article on the printing press I would guess that it also is visited more often.  Further, all the content on Wikipedia is licensed under Creative Commons, a system similar to copyright but allows people to use the authors work under certain conditions such as referencing the work in the manner the author wishes or not using the work for commercial purposes.  I think that this ensures that authors are contributing to Wikipedia to increase general knowledge as they won't profit from their articles.

The negatives of Wikipedia are inherent to the open access, free sharing nature of the site.  This means that anyone can share or add to an article which usually isn't a problem but it leaves the site vulnerable to incorrect or improperly referenced material and vandalism.  As far as incorrect information and omission of information, Wikipedia is on par with printed encyclopedias.  However encyclopedias, whether  online or printed, are meant to provide an overview of a topic.  I think this is important to keep in mind when conducting any research.  These sources are an excellent way to find key words regarding a topic and can lead you to primary and secondary sources but they are not of the calibre or depth of information to write any sort of paper.  If you keep this is mind, Wikipedia is an even better source than a printed encyclopedia as the page is often linked to internal pages on similar information and external links that provide a deeper analysis of the issue.  As for vandalism, there are a few people who ruin it for everyone but editors patrol Wikipedia and are able to either fix the vandalism or revert the page to the original.

All in all, the experience was rewarding especially being able to see my page come up on Google!  While it took me a bit to find out how to work the editing page it was not a barrier to my involvement.  While I have mostly discussed Wikipedia so far, it is not the only Wiki out there!  Lauren mentions some of the other sites on her blog.  It is amazing how much information is available out there and how specialized some of these wikis are.  My favourites include Wookeepedia on all things Star Wars and Ekopedia which has an ecology focus.  So I encourage everyone to contribute to online Wikis in their own field of interest and expertise as this improves our online community and promotes the sharing of knowledge.




This wordle was created from the about page on Wikipedia.  I think it captures Wikipedia well as it mentions the content, the positives, and the negatives.