“It is far better to be silent, than to increase the quantity of bad books"
- Volitaire
The Internet is an organized meeting grounds for all types of information for everyone to see. With such a large database and audience, the production of quality ideas and facts can not be regulated against the production of useless, and more often than not incorrect ones. For some, the Internet is part of a combination, and even the sometimes the sole provider of information in their life. This can be said for the younger generation where using technology has become second nature and widely encouraged. If these people are viewing and using this incorrect information, there is an abundance of ill-informed people going about their lives prone to making mistakes. Although the background history on each Star Wars character may be valuable material to some, the 15,000 plus word count as opposed to the 10,000 words used to describe World War Two on Wikipedia is a major conflict of interest when it comes to quantity versus quality on the Internet.
The most important question to ask when you seek something on the Internet is that, is this credible? You may be inclined to just say ,“yes, why would someone post false facts about Power Engineering job duties?” but it is not as simple as that. Even articles on the most world renown sites such as Encyclopedia Britannica that are used in schools to teach, average 2.92 mistakes which is second only to Wikipedia, the evil of all education sources. Just like you can not believe everything you see on TV, you can not believe everything you read on the web. Wikipedia is like a game of telephone, where someone posts information that justifies credibility to them, and another person may come along and change it, and then another, over and over until the article may become something completely different then what the original user had intended. This can also be said for other websites as it may sate that there is a source to the material on the page, but who is to say that source is reliable, or the source that the source used is as well. Wikipedia acts as a scapegoat when it comes to assessing information on the web, but the problem branches out further to all parts of the Internet.
People are beginning to realize just how insufficient a lot of the information on the web is, but they are mostly experts on specific subjects who come across inaccurate facts. What is to be said about the average person, who will decide for them what is right and what is wrong when searching the Internet. Whether it be the disappointed housewife who’s turkey came out dry because she used a missing step recipe, or a new investor who is out his grocery money because he got a bad tip on the stocks, quality of information effects everyone who uses the Internet and must be at the forefront of discussion when analyzing what is confidently reliable. More programs like the WikiProject Public Policy Initiative where students at universities write articles pertaining to important information need to be put in place in order to restore the reputation of a global community on the web. If ever in doubt, use the five W’s ; Who is the source of the information, what information are you getting, when was the site created, where was the site created, why am I at this site and finally how can I tell if this is reliable? Those questions in combination with common sense and just an overall awareness of what may or may not be true will significantly decrease the amount of false information you absorb.
Sources :
PowerPoint on Quality of Information
It's a Wiki, Wiki World
Improving Wikipedia's credibility
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