Practicum 1

For my blog assignment, I am joining and contributing to different wikis. A wiki is a form of collective intelligence where a public can create and edit different posts. The most popular wiki site is obviously Wikipedia, which is a Web based Encyclopedia where many people can contribute to the information on the site. I have joined both Wikipedia and Wikia, which is a wiki site that gives access to almost any other wiki I could think of. For instance, their homepage features direct access to the Glee wiki, Recipe wiki and Halo wiki. I think a major difference between the two wiki sites is that Wikia seems to be less professional than Wikipedia. I have noticed on Wikipedia a much larger element of accuracy, probably because it is much more trafficked and also much more edited. Wikia seems to be more of a fan page or discussion forum. One of the Wikias that I have been contributing to is on gluten intolerance because I have personal experience so I feel that I am knowledgeable and can contribute valid information. For instance, I have contributed 2 recipes because that is one of the main components of that page, but I have not had any feedback.

I have only been browsing Wikipedia because frankly I am too nervous to add anything to it because the information on it seems that it should be more legitimate. I would like to add something that is completely false, just to see if it would get added onto a page and if so how long it would take to get edited, but I am nervous to do that because I know a lot of people use it as a legitimate site so I would not want to steer anyone wrong. I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this? For example, should I try this just for the sake of the assignment? And also, do you think this happens more often than we know?