Wikipedia - Collaborative Peer Production

This blog aims to demonstrate and problematize the potential of collaborative peer production through the Wikipedia article on the political movement "Taiwan independence".

22.5.07

The quality and accuracy of articles on Wikipedia are highly questionable. As there is no responsibility in posting inaccurate information, a single member of the production team may post information that misleads the whole team. Edits are posted immediately without an editor checking the content, therefore the information submitted may be completely wrong and users would receive and perhaps pass on inaccurate knowledge if no one bothered to make corrections. In relations to “Taiwan independence”, anyone can post for example, ‘research shows, 90% of Taiwanese living in Taiwan believe they are superior than their Chinese neighbours from Mainland China and therefore would like to be independent of powers from People’s Republic of China’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taiwan_independence&oldid=132726391). This piece of information is completely made up and if posted on Wikipedia, users reading the article on “Taiwan independence” may obtain the wrong view and believe Taiwanese are completely arrogant. Acknowledging this piece of inaccurate content, users may mislead other non-Wikipedians to believe this false statement and cause many people to presume that Taiwanese are arrogant.

No comments: