Woodstock and Wikipedia – A Quest for the Truth

As some of you may remember (or will quickly find out when you go to check), I linked to an interesting video on the lifecycle of a Wikipedia article, particularly the one on the heavy metal Umlaut. For this week I will be using the standards outlined on this page to evaluate the Wikipedia page on Woodstock. Why this one? Well, a dear friend of mine brought up the point that people who say they actually remember Woodstock were probably not at Woodstock because there were drugs, man. Lots of drugs. Certainly this makes for an even more interesting evaluation.

The Standards

As with any type of evaluation, some standards need to be established in order to define what is credible and what is not. In this case, I will be using the page I linked to earlier as a basis for this post. The four main categories are as follows:  authority and accuracy, purpose and content, currency, and design, organization and ease of use. Authority and accuracy are determined based off of the identity of the author, their reliability, and their ability to be contacted. Purpose and content is evaluated based primarily on its balance and intent.  Currency is the frequency at which the site is updated. Finally, Design, organization and ease of use is based around a website’s ability to be searched and navigated. For an interactive, specific checklist to archive the legitimacy (or lack thereof) of a website, check this out. For the following evaluation, I will simply be answering the questions found on this page in general.

The Evaluation

  • Who is the author? Can you tell by the domain (e.g., .com or .edu) or Web address?
  • Is the information reliable? What are the qualifications or expertise of the individual or group that created the site?
  • Does the Web site provide a means of communicating with the author or Webmaster (e.g., email or postal address, telephone number, etc)?

The question above deal with the authority and accuracy of the article. For this article, no one author is accredited with the article. There is simply a list of updates with the usernames of those who added, edited, or removed portions of the article present along with the date and time of the modification. This also fits with the .org portion of the URL of the page. The usernames are fairly anonymous, with only a self-made “about me” type of page to add credibility to the user. There are message boards about various articles where these authors can presumably be reached.

  • What is the purpose of the Web site? (Look at the title and headings for clues.)
  • What is the purpose? To provide research and scholarly information? To provideeducational or factual information? To entertain? To advertise, market or sellsomething? To advocate ideas? To persuadeyou? Or, is there another purpose?
  • Is there a link to a mission statement or “About Our Organization” page?
  • Does the site provide balanced, objective or factual information?
  • Does the Web site provide subjective, editorial or opinion statements? Is the site a forum for a personal, political or ideological bias?
  • Is the point of view presented in a direct manner, or is it presented in an unbalanced and unreasonable way? Are arguments well supported?
The purpose of this website is to provide anywhere from a basic understanding to a more detailed comprehension of a subject, ranging from the rare to the regular. While some users may try to advocate their ideas via bias in there writing, these portions are often edited out quickly by fellow users, generally resulting in a fairly balanced article providing mostly factual information. There is also an “About Wikipedia” page in order to provide users with more insight into the purpose of the site. For the most part, arguments are supported with the use of footnotes, though not all are sufficient.
  • When was the Web site last revised, modified or updated?
  • Is the site well maintained? Are links current and working or do they lead to outdated pages and/or error message

As far as currency, the log of revisions shows that the article was evaluated a little less than a month ago, although the actual event occurred many years ago. Previous to this update, it is clear that revisions were made frequently over the course of time as well. Links for the most part tend to work, thought I have not personally explored all of the ones presented in this article.

  • Is the Web site clearly organized, easy to read, use and navigate?
  • If the Web site is large, is a search capability provided? If so, is it easy to use?
  • If applicable, are “Help” or “Search Tips” pages available? Are they easy to understand?
The website does have a clear structure, with articles typically having an internal structure as well. In this case, likely due to it being a relatively large topic of interest, the article has a fairly extensive internal table of contents. Search capability for the entire site is also provided, proving to be easy to use and effective. However, there is no clearly marked page providing search tips or help.
Conclusion
It is clear that this article is lacking in areas such as the authority and the accuracy of information, but overall it is not terrible in terms of its search ability, and actually performs fairly well in the currency category. However, due to its drawbacks it is not appropriate as a reference for a scholarly paper or when absolutely accurate information is vital.
Will anyone ever know exactly what happened at Woodstock? Probably not.

 

This entry was posted on September 22, 2012 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Uncategorized . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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