Wiki's

I found the wiki concept to be extremely cool. It seems like it can be very useful for gathering a ton of information on a topic in a quick fashion. At the same time, there could possibly be repetitive information on the wiki, and you run the risk of overflowing the reader with too much, making it harder to understand, when the whole idea of a wiki is to make this information easier for people to find and use. So what fascinates me is how it can be such a great tool to use, and yet have so many pitfalls.

I think this is also what leads teachers to not like Wikipedia as a resource, because there is no sure way of verifying some of the information on the site. Unless there is a direct link to another source, any of the information put on the site could be completely fabricated, and it happens all the time because, again, the term wiki refers to the fact that anyone is able to add content to the topic.

So while the idea of collaboration and pooling the information that people have at their disposal seems great, I feel like I can't blame the teachers for taking the stance they have, on either side of the fence. Personally, I think if you can directly link to another source with the information put on a wiki, then just use that as your source. But if there isn't a direct link, I can't say that I trust the information. It's almost like rumors, because once the information is out there, it's hard to make it go away, een if it's wrong, unless you can directly prove otherwise, or show that there is indisputable evidence that the information is true, not just circumstancial evidence.