The concept of collaboration is an interesting one. We collaborate in the workplace, in academia, and in our personal lives. This post is meant to reflect on some of our reading from this week that discusses the evolution of collaborative articles and information through sites like Wikipedia as written by Tom Roston and Special Containment Procedures/Secure, Contain, Protect (SCPs) as discussed in the Daily Dot. As a student, I find Wikipedia to be an amazing source for other sources, and it’s a shame that I can’t ever use the site itself as a credible source. Sometimes I wish I could just use it instead, but it works well for finding references that I can cite. Reading Roston’s article and learning about Nupedia made me understand exactly why Wikipedia has been successful. It thrives on collaboration and ease of access, but why does this matter? What makes it bad?
The credibility goes way down which is exactly what Nupedia was working against with their format and peer review process. But on the bright side, Wikiepedia’s process has become more rigorous and reviewed. When in doubt, just using it as a base resource for finding citable articles and other links to sources makes for a great start on any project. The key is fact checking!
Regardless, Wikipedia is now a cornerstone of life online. How many wives did King Henry VIII have? Where does the word “fuck” come from? Why did people wear bearskin shoes? Wikipedia has all the answers.
Tom Roston, “An Oral History of Wikipedia, the Web’s Encyclopedia”
This brings me to think about how we collaborate with others in so many ways. Do we know how credible they are? Do we believe them? Why? Usually, we automatically believe people that we feel we can trust. If we believe strangers, they probably talk with a well-established understanding of rhetoric and feel credible and logical. There’s a sense of community in learning from each other and expanding our minds. We build cultures this way and establish the status quo. People have faith in something or someone as a result of convincing stories and emotional connections. Everything that we know, every thought that we have – each bit of information in our minds has differing origins and have been placed in our mind through the collaboration of life.
And as a result, digital rhetoric has huge importance on our trust when we read online. We as readers love it if we can see the sources, read the technical language, and comprehend the information that is being provided. It’s even better if it’s presented in a way that feels credible with multiple perspectives and the insight of others! Collaboration is a tool that we’re meant to use to help us get to where we need to be, not a crutch to rely on, and this is why things like Wikipedia and SCPs have success.