As we learned in Chapter 3 of our textbook, Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, is the most famous wiki out there and was created by users around the world. It's a great place to start the research process. Apparently, users aren't only using it for research they are also using it to express their strong feelings of anger and dislike.
After the winner of the Best New Artist award was given to Esperanza Spalding at the Grammys, Justin Bieber fans attacked Esperanza's wikipedia page. They were adding statements like, "Who the heck are you anyway? and "Justin Bieber deserved it go die in hole." They even changed her middle name and altered her biography. I thought it was interesting that they chose Wikipedia to voice their negative opinions but then again why not, it's so easy to do. Users can add, remove, edit or change information quite freely and sometimes without even registering.
The lesson learned for me was that even though Wikipedia can be a valuable place to start research and a great tool for collaboration in the classroom, I need to always question its reliability. How can you trust the information when anyone has access to change it. It's actually quite scary.
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