The Great Wikipedia Project
The goal of this assignment is to test the proposition that a global, collectively generated, and largely bottom-up digital encyclopedia can serve as a reliable tool for pursuing truth.
To this end, you should begin working together to identify a single Wikipedia page to which you can make additions or deletions. Your topic can be controversial or simply significant.
Be aware:
- You may find that certain topics are so contested (e.g., the Arab-Israeli conflict) that Wiki will not allow you to make quick additions or any additions at all. In these cases, just find another topic.
- Feel free to provoke the Wiki drones who monitor your site. However, if you are so inclined, do not do this until shortly before you make your class presentation. There is no value in getting banned from Wikipedia right away. Alternatively, the advantage of less controversial sites is that you will be able to make more contributions.
I am interested in both 1) what you do with your sites; and 2) what happens behind the scenes when (or if) your posts are evaluated. For example, see Sandbox. More generally, see Policies and Guidelines. Also, check out Wikipedia’s appeals process. As I discovered, there are avatars above every guardian. It would be interesting to know what the credentialing process is for all of these levels of supervision. Please let me know what you find.
As you work on this global e-encyclopedia site, keep your great thinkers in mind. Whose argument would survive the test of truth-telling and truth-verifying? Whose argument would not? Who might argue that the process is irrelevant? Kant, Mill, Orwell, Machiavelli, Madison, Dewey, and/or Ressa?
In joining Wikipedia, be sure to read the membership rules and guidelines.
Deadlines:
- You must get going on this assignment now. Each of your four groups must have identified its respective page and begun to correspond about the p/age’s operations before this coming Saturday, March 29.
- Also by this coming Saturday, March 29, your group should enter the title of the page you are modifying on your Google document as well as your page’s URL. As you move along, feel free to do anything reasonable to test Wikipedia’s capacity to sort the good from the bad, and right from wrong. Keep a record of what happens. Although Wikipedia itself records everything that has been entered, reviewed, and in some cases deleted (I think), it is a good idea to keep your own records about what you have posted.
One qualification: You may not under any circumstances mess around with my personal page. Some company created it, and the last thing I need is scurrilous disinformation going around in the ether about my person and purposes!