Comparison: Wikia v. Wikipedia
Wikia shares some of the goals of Wikipedia, but the two are not “sister projects” since Wikia is not a Wikimedia project
I decided to explore both sites to compare the two.
I explored Wikia first. I clicked on random page and got an article about Michael Jackson. The page provided a summary of what the wiki was going to contain. There was currently 4 articles that were currently being edited. It then took me to a community portal where I could help edit the page. I couldn’t seem to find the article. The site seemed to be under a lot of construction. Wikipedia, of course, had good information about Michael Jackson.
I then decided to search articles in the Hightlights section. I search TV shows and it gave me a list of shows. I chose “The Girls Next Door.” It didn’t seem to have updated information. It did not have information about the third season. Wikipedia had a lot more information. It was current and up to date on the new episodes on “The Girls Next Door.”
I think that Wikipedia is just a lot more popular and has many more users.
Clean up!
I read the discussion tab to the Dave Chappelle article found on Wikipedia.com. There are many discussions about false information ranging from Chappelle’s religion, drug use, article plagiarism, and other misleading information. You can tell that this article needs serious work. Users have added cleanups tags and have tried to organize the article by adding headings and subheadings. There has been a lot of vandalism on this site. Irrelevant MySpace videos have been added and some users have used inappropriate language in the article. I can tell that some users are working hard to clean up this site and add true facts.
The discussion board allows users to interact by explaining changes and asking each other questions. The false information that I discussed in my previous blog has been changed. The information sounds a lot more realistic now. I’m not sure if the information is 100% accurate though. Users have been trying edit and revise this site for a couple years now. It still needs a lot of work and is being slowed down by the vandalism.
 Dave Chappelle on the DVD cover of the 1st season of his show. |
|
| Born: | August 24, 1973 (age 33) Washington, D.C. |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Comedian |
| Salary: | $2 million[citation needed] |
| Spouse: | Elaine Chappelle |
| Children: | 2 |
| Website: | DaveChappelle.com |
| BEFORE:
Born: |
July 21, 1986 (age 20) St. Louis, Mo |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Moocher |
| Salary: | $5 |
| Spouse: | Nancy Choi |
| Children: | 17 |
| Website: | DaveChappelle.com |
Dave Chappelle…a 20 year old moocher with 17 children!!
Today I was doing some research on Dave Chappelle for one of my classes. I am writing a paper for my visual communications class about how are white people are stereotyped. I decided to check out Wikipedia.com to find a little more information about him and his shows. I saw a picture and some information that I included below about his age, occupation, salary, and number of children. I could immediately tell that this information was false. I am not going to correct it, but I plan to check the site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Chappelle) several times a day and see if anyone corrects this information and see how quickly someone responds to it.
Dave Chappelle on the DVD cover of the 1st season of his show. |
|
| Born: | July 21, 1986 (age 20) St. Louis, Mo |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Moocher |
| Salary: | $5 |
| Spouse: | Nancy Choi |
| Children: | 17 |
| Website: | DaveChappelle.com |
 |
This article may require cleanupto meet Wikipedia’s quality standards. Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message. This article has been tagged since December 2006. |
So, I went back and looked at the site a little more and saw this note above. I don’t know if this site will get cleaned up anytime soon. It looks like nobody has touched it for nearly 3 months. It nice to know that Wikipedia gives this warning though. It just caught my eye as soon as saw the false information. I quickly decided that this would be a great example for my blog. I will still do checks on the entry. If it doesn’t get corrected maybe I’ll have to do some research on Dave Chappelle and fix it myself???
Finally, a great Wiki site
I joined wetpaint.com today. It seems like a great place to start my wiki and begin editing other wikis. The website is very user-friendly and very informative. I like the site a lot. It was a very simple process of signing up and it had a helpful tutorial with a trial area called the sandbox. The editing process is also simple to do. Next week, I hope to begin writing my own wiki and looking at other people’s wikis also.
WikiMatrix.com–Compare them all
So I found a site today that seems interesting. My first reaction is that it is eye catching and seems like it has a lot of information. I will be looking at this site and hopefully be able to learn about more Wikis and compare them!
I went to the site and it gave me good comparisons about who runs the site and how much it would cost to be a member of the sites. This Wikimatriz led me to more Wiki sites that I hadn’t heard of. Throughout the week I hope to explore new Wikis.
My response to Wikispaces.com…
So like I was saying in the previous blog, I registered to be a part of Wikispaces.com (https://www.wikispaces.com/). I decided to take a tour of the website and see how this site would interest me. My first reaction wasn’t very positive. The homepage had Wikispace News that was last updated on January 26, 2007. I decided to go ahead and take a look at the Wikipage with the most views (1,337,009 Views). This Wiki discussed the Motorola E398 mobile phone. The latest entry gave a tutorial of animated backgrounds. The tutorial was for the most part in Spanish and some was in English.
I decided to go ahead and search a topic that interested me and see if I could get a positive response from the site. I typed in “Advertising.” It brought up a list, but I could access any of them because they were protected sites used by private groups only.
I did manage to come across these two websites about using wikis in schools and the benefits of using them. The only negative thing is that I only stumbled upon them when I typed “
Lubbock” in the search engine. http://www.scienceofspectroscopy.info/edit/index.php?title=Using_wiki_in_educationhttp://www.cue.org/why/wiki/
Overall, Wikispaces.com seems really confusing. The website seems very dull to me. It doesn’t seem like it has a lot of interaction from the public and would that it would be very useful to me. I think that this site would be great for teachers or professors to use to collaborate thoughts in a classroom setting. Other than that, I don’t think I will be logging in ever again.
WikiSpaces
So today I decided to join WikiSpaces.com to learn more about wikis. I have been trying to figure the site out. I have been unable to accomplish much. It actually seemed more interesting reading the discussions about the Wikis rather than reading the actualy wikis. Maybe I will have more luck tomorrow.
Companies are now using Wikis
Companies are discovering a new and trendy way to communicate within the company. They are using Wikis, web pages that everyone can write and edit. Companies are using Wikis to collaborate with other companies to post and respond to each other’s idea. This summer businesses plan to extend them to customers and business partners to learn and expose mistakes to one another.I think that Wikis are a great way for companies to share ideas. This allows people within the business to connect on a further level. I think that it will be great to extend Wikis to customers and business partners.
Teacher can use wikis to enhance learning
Wikis are going to be a great way for teachers and students to communicate with one another. Here are a list of ways teachers will be able to use Wikis in the classroom .
1. Provide a space for free writing
2. Debate course topics, including assigned readings
3. Share resources such as annotated bibliographies, websites, effective writing samples, conferences, calls for manuscript.
4. Maintain a journal of work performed on group projects
5. Require students to collaborate on documents, such as an essay written by the entire class
6. Discuss curricular and instructional innovations
7. Encourage students to revise Wikipedia pages or take on new wikipedia assignments
8. Inspire students to write a Wikibook
9. Support service learning projects (i.e. use wikis to build a website about a challenge in their city)
Teachers have a variety of Wiki websites to choose from. They can use Writing Wiki, Wikipedia, Wikibooks, and Teaching Wiki. Teachers will come across obstacles along the way. But, overall I think that using Wikis in the class will bring the class more together and allow students to learn together.
Check this slide out for more information:
http://www.slideshare.net/jpuglia/techspo-wiki-presentation/1
What will me blogs focus on??
I will be discussing Wikis througout this semester. The most well known Wiki is Wikipedia. I want to look outside of this well known Wiki and search for more low key Wikis. I want to learn how Wikis are being used among students, businesses, and communities. Wikis are a growing trend and I hope to expand my knowledge as well as my classmates knowledge on Wikis.
