06/10/08
Wikis
The objectives of this lecture were:
- What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a collection of web pages which are designed to enable anyone with access to contribute or modify content. The best know use of wikis is the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.
I had a vague idea what wikis were but only in reference to Wikipedia. I didn’t know that anyone could modify the information or that wiki is Hawaiian for “fast”. Others think that wiki stands for What I Know Is but this has been made up after the fact.
- A look at some examples
We looked at the wikis available ton Wikipedia. John asked us to search for things that we knew about to see whether the information was true.
I decided to search for the area where I live which is Cochrane Park:
“Cochrane Park is an area of Newcastle upon Tyne, England located in the north east of the city. It is home to the Coach Lane Campus of Northumbria University. It consists of many streets such as Hilden Gardens and Vancouver Drive, opposite the Lochside Public House. It is known as a high class area with well off residents. It borders High Heaton, and has local walkways which link it to Paddie Freemans Park and Victoria Glade Park”
All of this is correct, however what is no longer available on the wiki is the statement that residents of Cochrane Park refer to it as ‘cocky p’. I have lived in this area my entire life and that is not the case at all. I was always told in school and university not to use Wikipedia for coursework/assignments because the information wasn’t reliable but I had never witnessed it and to be honest I was rather annoyed that this incorrect information was available for everyone to see. John showed me how easy it was to modify the content and I removed the statement.
- Building our own Wiki
We then went on to look at how to create a wiki for ourselves and the different coding involved. It really is easier than I thought. It shows how easy it would be for me to write about anything I wanted without knowing whether it was true or indeed just making the information up.
- A first look at some of the issues that arise from the use of large scale open wikis (Wikipedia)
This has really made me thing about how reliable information is. I have known about Wikipedia for a good few years but never really understood the issues that arise if you chose to use it.
