The Wikipedia Experiment


This week with an assignment from one of my classes I returned to Wikipedia to edit once again. This time it wasn’t for malicious purposes or to troll the largest online encyclopedia but instead to improve the site. I honestly wasn’t expecting much seeing the last time I had edited theban hammer had come down on me quick. Me and three other group members looked for a page to edit that could use some of our previous knowledge. Fortunately and unfortunately, we chose a topic that is not the lightest subject which is “Modern Slavery.” I know, I know, kind of a sensitive topic but we had good points we wanted to add about Chinese exploitation of Africans, Saudi Arabia’s exploitation of Egypt and Indonesia, and slavery due to technology. The post had citations and everything yet within 10 minutes the content was taken down. I guess four college students really shouldn’t be qualified to talk about such a sensitive issue but to be taken down in 10 minutes was surprising. All I can say though is I guess Wikipedia really hasn’t changed that ban hammer.     

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 17, 2017 at 8:20 PM

    Hey Evan!
    I really like your post and I'm glad that this time you were actually editing to improve the content, lol. It sucks when you try to make sure the information is correct and there are sources and citations and it still gets taken down, but I like to think of it as "well, if anyone ever asks about information, there is always edits, and at least I've educated myself and tried to better the info."
    Great post and I can't wait to see your video!

    ReplyDelete

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