Response to 'Criticisms of Wikipedia'

Response to 'Criticisms of Wikipedia'

I agree that Wikipedia is not as accurate or as high quality as scientific research or reports made by experienced people in their field. The whole idea that content is actually relied on the wisdom of the masses reflect that there is actually no one overseeing the entire wiki post. This makes wiki very susceptible to false content, fake information etc. Hence I believe that's why our teachers, professors and tutors told us to NEVER NEVER NEVER cite Wiki in our assignments.

Wiki has a clause in its editing agreements that the written work has to be as much as possible 'free from bias'. For issues such as science and technology, the issues can be quite clear-cut without having to express it from the opinion from the writer. (Its a general assumption, eg. if u type 'fibre optic cables', the content is technical and written free without the writer's opinions)
But what about issues like history? Events that happened in history means many different things to different people. Take for example 'Adolf Hitler', how is a writer suppose to write about him without writing about his/her perceptions? Are we going to deem the killing of >6 million Jews an atrocity or just part of his plan for ethnic cleansing? We can't do it on Wiki, as it doesnt allow us to form our opinions about the topic.
Hence, this should be a topic that would be best written outside of Wiki as, well, we all have different perspective about it.

Wiki is good for general, basic information but not as a place to cite as its accuracy is questionable. Moreover, for issues like The Arts, I would prefer to read viewpoints rather than the basic facts. This will allow me to form my own conclusion which is good critical-thinking hahahhaha!

cybersociety wk 9

The rise of crowdsourcing

By Jeff Howe

In this article, the writer opens with how a project director at a national health museum was looking for photos to be published. She decided to use preexisting images, also known as stock photography.

So I googled the definition of it and it turns out to be “professional photographs of common places, landmarks, nature, events or people that are bought and sold on a royalty-free basis and can be used and reused for commercial design purposes” (stock photo)

I guessed it basically means that its like an online market for photos that can be sold for a copyrighted fee and that is cost effective as well compared to hiring a professional photographer.

The example that was given “iStockphoto” boasts a huge database of photos that were priced for $1-$5 for basic images. The photos were posted by more than 22,000 contributors on that site.

link here >>> http://www.istockphoto.com/ 

That’s the power of the crowd hahaah. When there are more contributors, there will be more images and photos on the site. Hence the wide array of photos from people all around the world may seem more attractive than one solo’s photographer works, But of course, the quality will be quite different. No matter how cheap professional cameras are or how good one is in photoshop, the photographer’s skills will be placed above all else.

But I would say sites like iStockphoto will be good for companies or organizations with a tight budget and do not require super high-end quality photos.

Nonetheless, professional photographers may be feeling the pinch as they have to lower down their prices to compete (but then again you can’t compete with $1). But not all hope is lost; there is still a demand for professional photographers.

Let me give an example. My cousin and her now-husband recently hired a wedding photographer to take their wedding photos at different locations around Singapore. They paid a lot of $$$$$ for the photos and a photo album. (haha so obviously a photographer’s skills are very much in demand here)

with credits given to lightedpixels photography, 

taken with permission from Diana Chua and Ko Lingwei 

I can also think of another crowdsourcing example which I’m sure many of us have used it before at any point in our lives – Wikipedia. The online encyclopedia has contributors from all around the world, contributing to any topic and subject available under the sun.

What about you? Can you think of more examples?

Cya!

Cybersociety. week 7

Cybersociety 2012

My thoughts on the article

‘Reading Twitter in Tehran?’

By John Palfrey, Bruce Etling and Robert Faris

21/06/09

A few weeks ago, I did the presentation on twitter and how twitter helps in political causes... This made me  quite interested to know what happened in Iran through twitter.

The authors mentioned that Twitter was crucial in the Iranian Revolution 2009. Twitter as a platform meant that people could not be stopped and controlled any longer. (stated by blogger Andrew Sullivan)

The multi-applications that Twitter is able to run on (which I touched on last week) meant that Twitter is “nearly impossible to block”

But for all the success, there are limitations as well.

The nature of twitter is such that twitter feeds are dynamic; constantly changing due to the updates of many tweets. A tweet is also limited to 140 characters, which makes conciseness a problem.

How are people going to pay attention or even take notice of tweets that are aplenty in the cyberworld? There needs to be more of a ‘oomph’ factor in making sure the global audience reads your tweet.

Also, anyone can tweet. People dissatisfied with the current political or economic situation can take their grouses to the cyberworld. Hoever, government agencies and officials can simply take to the social platform to clear up misunderstandings, feed propaganda etc. Well, if it doesn’t work out, they can always threaten to lock up people in jails for opposing their ‘national agendas’.

Anyway, there are other social platforms apart from twitter that can be used for political activism.

It is stated in (SCHLESINGER, 2010) that “politicans are using facebook to reach constituents in innovative ways, not just to advertise their policy views, but also for everything from finding new staffers to giving their constituents a look at their personal lives" 
Hence, its more of just sending word out about the views on policies blah blah blah but also to get in touch with the online community, and to interact with them online. 

I came across quite an interesting article titled ‘Unfriending over politics’ by Howard Kurtz. It seems that people have blocked, unfriended or hidden someone whose political opinions they disagree (9% of those surveyed actually) (Kurtz, 2012). I think its quite funny that people unfriend each other just because of their political views. I think we live in a age where it should be common to be accepting and tolerant of others.

So. what is your view? Should we stop writing our political views on social networks lest we get ‘unfriended’ or ‘unfollowed’? (but I must say, I don’t really like to ‘friend’/’follow’ people who post political rants every single day ahahahhahaha.

Cya!