The World and Wikipedia (Part II)

In my last post I began by saying “Love it or hate it, Wikipedia is here and it’s definitely not going anywhere”, but after reading the second half of The World of Wikipedia: How we are Editing Reality by Andrew Dalby, it’s pretty obvious that we love it. In the second half of this book, Andrew Dalby really gets into the reasons and theories behind why so many people have come to depend on and love the website known as Wikipedia. Wikipedia may have had a large amount of skeptics and criticizers during its early years, but that group has only grown smaller and smaller as Wikipedia became bigger and bigger. Also, Andrew Dalby discusses why some people do not trust Wikipedia and are hesitant about using it, but ultimately will come to trust Wikipedia and rely on it as Wikipedia becomes a stronger power and force on the internet. Even now Wikipedia is a force to be reckoned with on the internet, but it is still getting bigger and more popular. Wikipedia is becoming more and more commercially and officially popular. By officially, I mean that as Wikipedia becomes bigger, more television news stations and newspapers and factual literature in general are getting information from Wikipedia and citing them one of their sources (sometimes their sole source). In particular I found most interesting the argument that the love of Wikipedia greatly comes from the community based interactions.