Assignment 3: Analysis of Wikipedia

Wikipedia.com is a site containing information that would be found in an encyclopedia. However, Wikipedia is different from an encyclopedia because it allows for any user to edit the files instead of getting researchers to provide the information. It is because of this that Wikipedia is a major source when looking for information about topics that can not be easily found elsewhere.

By definition, an encyclopedia is a comprehensive reference work which contains articles on a wide range of subjects. Normally, an encyclopedia is arranged alphabetically and is usually presented in volumes. Wikipedia seems to improve the concept of an encyclopedia because it allows others to interact with the process of giving input. Since the articles on Wikipedia are actively updated, users usually would not have to wait of encyclopedias before they can have access to recent information. Additionally, since anyone can update any article on the site, some articles are almost like watching the news because of the descriptiveness of the content. For instance, in an article on September 11, 2001, the writers give very descriptive information about the attacks. In addition, the information is almost like reading a news report, which makes it seem very accurate. In addition, the contents of the article has various points about the motives of the attack, which is interesting considering most sources only mention one or two motives.

Since Wikipedia allows users to edit the contents of an article freely, the concept of human knowledge comes into play. To me, human knowledge is a vague term because it could me the knowledge the average person would possess, or knowledge that all humans have as a whole. When looking through Wikipedia, I found information I did not have any knowledge about, like the article about the history of Final Fantasy. I had no knowledge that the series started because Square was on the verge of bankruptcy. However, this is not anything I would thing the average person would know about, but as a whole, humans would possess this knowledge. Wikipedia tends to portray that human knowledge is the knowledge possessed by humans as opposed to range of knowledge possessed by the average person. In addition, Wikipedia also suggest that human knowledge is constantly expanding and growing. For instance, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children was just released last week, and there is already an entire page on the movie. Normally, it would take months for an update to a normal encyclopedia to present this information to the public.

Even though Wikipedia shows the good side to human knowledge, it also shows the bad. In some cases, information on the site is inaccurate and has to be changed. Some of these changes are small, like in the Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children article; a few changes had to be made about character names. For instance, the original author did not know that the name Aeris was officially changed back to Aerith after the release of Kingdom Hearts, causing for the article to be corrected. However, some of the articles contain false information, which can cause problems when relying on Wikipedia as a source of information.

Overall, Wikipedia seems to be a reliable source of information. Even though some information is inaccurate, the users still have the ability to edit anything that they feel is false or misleading information. By giving users this ability, Wikipedia presents itself as an example for the growth of human knowledge, and the advancement of the encyclopedia.

I choose to edit the article on Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children