The World and Wikipedia: How We Are Editing Reality

    The World and Wikipedia: How We Are Editing Reality is a book that engages us into the reference source that has changed our lives. The book shows us the inner workings of Wikipedia and why we hate it or love it, and why we always use it. The book starts off with examples of the involvement of users and their ability to change Wikipedia. It starts with the earthquake that struck central Italy on April 6, 2009. Within the hour, there was a Wikipedia article about it. By the end of the day, there was two different articles in two different languages: English and Spanish, both exceeded 1000 words in length and contained maps and tables. There were a total of 20 different language articles were created on the subject by day’s end. This shows the positive side of Wikipedia, as people rallied together to bring news and information of a tragic event together to be shared to the world.
    However, as with anything, it is not immune to vandalism and  defacement. The books cites an incident that happened on March 25, 2009, in which a person set up an account under the username Keykingz13. 6 minutes after setting up this account, began to change information on the Wikipedia to various articles. His further editing betrayed the fact that he did not speak English naturally through his grammatically incorrect English. It was not till five days later that all the damage that he made was reversed and corrected. This course of action reveals the relation between man and technology.
    I believe that the author brings up a valid point in the talking about the relationship between man and technology. My belief here is that technology is not naturally good nor evil, but rather it is up to the people that use it and perpetrate it.  In both cases presented, it was the user who decided on how they were going to utilize Wikipedia. In the first case, the technology is used for good, in that people gathered information on the earthquake and its effect and share it with others who want to know about it. It proves useful to connect people from around the world. Wikipedia allowed people to connect and share. However, there are people that would purposefully deface it and share false facts and lies, as seen in the second instance. It is up to the person to decide what to make of the technology.
    As for a reason why people hate Wikipedia, it is mentioned in the book is that Wikipedia allows anyone to edit it. It is one of the first thing that was criticized, and how it was vulnerable to vandalism. However, Wikipedia has generated some surprisingly accurate articles. An example of the vulnerability of being able to change the articles is an example I witnessed while watching the Colbert Report. Colbert urged his viewers to change the article on reality to display “Reality is a commodity.” Within 10 seconds of this statement, the article was changed at least half a dozen time. We see through this how people can easily change articles on Wikipedia. However, luckily, the article was locked down within the minute so that it could not be changed. One of the things many people seem to underestimate is the number of people working to keep Wikipedia free from vandalism and accurate. Overall the book brings forth many different points arguing for and against Wikipedia.