Why Wiki Web? Critical Analysis 7-113

In Andrew Dalby's "The World and Wikipedia", Dalby talks about the people who contributed to Wikipedia, (Wikipedians) who invented Wikipedia, why it was invented, and the pros and cons of Wikipedia.Gaius Plinius Secundus, referred to as Pliny, spent everyday having books read to him while taking notes on them. But the problem with writing notes was that there are simply too much to be written down or to be kept updated. "He is the first known author to have used the word encyclopaedia, 'full circle of knowledge'" (pg 20). But soon encyclopedia enthusiasts moved everything to CD-ROMs. It was a good idea at the time, but the hassle of changing CDs to search for information was just not efficient. Wikipedia came from the idea of online encyclopedia. It all started with Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales with the initial idea of online encyclopedia. The name Wikipedia originated from the word "wikiwiki", which means fast and "pedia", from the end of encyclopedia. Larry Sanger soon thought of the idea of adding a software which enables users to "edit" the information freely on wikipedia. But the problem with that is people can put false information which leads to misinformation to the subject. In my experience, my friends used to make up words and put on wikipedia and it would be allowed and published. A lot of people will turn to wikipedia as the first source of information when encountering an unknown subject. To be honest, I do that as well. When I first come across a new subject, I will use wikipedia first to get a small knowledge of what is ahead. Many professors would not even take wikipedia into consideration of a source. But a lot of times wikipedia is very accurate and useful. “Ever more often, students find themselves using Wikipedia because their treat it as a teaching aid” (pg 104). Even though wikipedia is not the most reliable source, I believe wikipedia has its advantage because of the accessibility and convenience. But when using wikipedia, users must be careful and not be mislead but any false information. It is important for one to research further after using wikipedia to confirm the information to be correct.