Wikipedia
April 20, 2008
For this week’s blog we have been asked to search wikipedia for 2 topics we are familiar with and answer some questions about the information available on each. For my first topic I chose to look up information about the computer game the sims 2. I picked this because I enjoy playing this game and I think I have basic knowledge about it. After I search the words ’sims 2′ a page dedicated to information about the game appeared. There was much more written on the page than I expected there would be.
I found that the information about the game was accurate (to my previous knowledge) but I did find out something that I did not know earlier. I found out from reading the article in wikipedia that the makers of the game are planning on making a live action film based on the sims 2. I searched this on Google to find out if it was true. I found that other websites also claimed that the makers announced this information in 2006 and the film would most likely be released in 2009. This taught me that using wikipedia to find out whether ‘facts’ on the site are true is a good way to help you learn how to research online for other sources.
To evaluate this article, I will answer the questions for this blog entry. I found that this was an accurate article of information. It does cover all the basic facts you would need to understand about the game, plus additional information that is not required. I believe that this article is balanced and not particularly biased to one side, because the article is mostly about game play etc. I don’t think that I would need to make any changed to this article to make it better for the wider wikipedia community.
The second topic I have decided to look up is the website Ebay. Being an Ebay user, I thought that I had some basic knowledge about it in general. I found that this wikipedia article seemed to have a lot of accurate (as far as I knew) information about Ebay. I feel that it contained adequate knowledge about the website and the features included. I feel that it did have a bit of a negative spin in some of the chapters due to them mentioning fraud and unsafe shopping on the website. But I think this is just part of the risk of buying online, so the information doesn’t really make the piece biased. I believe that this page is easy to read and would not need to be changed to suit the wider wikipedia community.
