The Reliability of Resources
June 22, 2008 § Leave a comment
Guy Kawasaki tweeted this question today:
Is the Internet a Source of Information or Misinformation?
With a link to this post on Trueomors about how people think that information found through research on the Internet is not reliable, citing Wikipedia as the prime example. People are saying that children’s heads are being filled with untruths and propaganda, and that Wikipedia is inherently bad because anyone can submit content.
Here is my response: Pashaw!
Yes, I admit that the content of Wikipedia must be regarded with scrutiny and care, but no more so than any other research reference. Misinformation is also printed in books. If people are trained to research with discernment and a critical eye, they know that they can’t rely on the accuracy of any one resource. You should always use more than one search engine when doing Internet research, and you should always use more than one encyclopedia. Once you’ve gathered those references, you should then look for the primary sources that are often referenced in citations. This might even require going to the library and — gasp — looking at books!
The Internet simply makes some commonly used resources more easily available than they ever have been. No longer do you have to go to the library to use the encyclopedias there, or the card catalog (remember those?). Wearing your PJs and bunny slippers, you can research your paper from the privacy of your own home. If I were a lazy college student, I might be tempted not to verify my sources and simply rely on Wikipedia as my sole source. But then I wouldn’t expect to get a good grade.
The point I’m trying to make is that whether it’s Wikipedia or a reference in a book, any research worth his or her salt must confirm any information with more than one reference.
The thing that I like about Wikipedia is exactly what makes it problematic. I really love the concept of user-contributed content. It’s kind of a utopian idea, even if it isn’t executed in reality how it is conceived in it’s ideals. I like to be optimistic, but I’m not naive. I’ve heard about the people who will sabotage McCain’s or Obama’s or Clinton’s Wikipedia pages. I know there are unscrupulous people out there who want to push their own agendas rather than contribute to the integrity of available information on the Internet.
This has been the challenge of the Internet all along: How to manage the onslaught of available information. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? The answer is this: The same way researchers always have since libraries existed. You use the best research methods and tool available to find all the information you can about your subject, not relying on just one method or resource. Once you have gathered all of your data, then you analyse it, verifying your sources.
Think of it! If we provide better research training to people when they’re in college, when they come across bad information on Wikipedia perhaps they’ll be inclined to fix the citation, thus contributing to the integrity of that resource. Perhaps then Wikipedia will have a better reputation.
Watching the Election
June 5, 2008 § 1 Comment
Tuning into the coverage Clinton’s and Obama’s speeches last night, I must say that the best analysis was coming from Twitter. All of the major news outlets had uploaded their stories about the respective candidates, citing Clinton’s shortcomings and offering analysis about why she failed, and trumpeting Obama’s clinching the nomination.
What I had just watched on TV and what I was finding on the Internet just didn’t match.
I confess, I bought into the media hype like everyone else, and I was totally expecting Clinton to concede. I haven’t been paying attention to much of either her campaign or Obama’s, and I haven’t watched much of the debates over the last five months because I like them both and I can’t stand to see them get ugly at each other. I was excited for all of this to come to an end so that the dems could stop being so divisive.
I found myself surprised at my response when she did not concede: I was really delighted and proud.
I thought her speech was great, and although she didn’t offer an endorsement of Obama, I thought she offered some incredibly gracious words that over the long term may actually unite her supporters and his.
This was the story, and I was getting no satisfaction from the ready-made stories from the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press. It was so obvious that the major news outlets had already written what they intended to publish, and it reflected what they had expected to happen, not what actually had happened. And live TV was not much better! The pundits were so confused and did not know what to make of what had happened. I was left very unsatisfied.
I was honestly getting better coverage and analysis from Twitter. I was more interested in the spontaneous reactions from my Twitter friends, to the news and to each other than anything the pundits had to say.
FriendFeed NPTech Room
June 4, 2008 § Leave a comment
I am remiss for not posting this earlier (not that anyone is reading this blog yet). Johnathon Coleman created a room in FriendFeed for nonprofit technology professionals. He and Barb Kantor have been working together to get people talking to each other and sharing resources.
I, of course, haven’t had the time to participate much yet, but I am finally starting to get FriendFeed. I have already stated here that I have been seriously underutilizing it. No more! I thought it was just a simple aggregator, collecting stuff that I’m putting out in the world in my various social networking platforms in one place. Okay, that’s cool, but you can also use it as a forum to talk to people. There is talk of it possibly replacing email listserves because it makes it so easy. I’m not quite convinced on that front, but its still cool.
I’m so excited that I figured out what Imaginary Friends are for! You can still follow people who don’t use FriendFeed. What a fantastic idea.
However, if you want to join the conversation, you have to join FriendFeed. I highly recommend it.
Twitter and The Like
June 2, 2008 § Leave a comment
There was lots of interesting chatter going on last night over Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed about a new Twitter competitor called Plurk. Haven’t tried it myself, but I was following a bit of the chat into to the wee hours (yes, I stayed up too late again).
What I have found through experimentation and following these tweets and conversations is that Twitter and FriendFeed work great in combination, that you can have more robust conversations via FriendFeed, and that Twhirl adds some really nice functionality to both Twitter and FriendFeed. I know now that I haven’t been using FriendFeed to its fullest potential. I haven’t been using tools like FriendFeed for their intended purpose: social networking. Duh! Again, its one of those tools that becomes more useful when you connect with more people.
I also learned that there are a number of companies out there that look like they’re going to give Twitter a run for their money. Twitterers are complaining that Twitter crashes all the time, and sometimes eats the tweets that they are putting out there. So you visit a site like When Twitter is Down to give you some advice about what to do: “Cry like a tiny little baby.”
Companies that are on the horizon: Plurk, ZobZee, and possibly Jaiku. There are probably others, but these are the ones I know about. Seems that people were going in droves over the Plurk last night, so much so that the system went down. Ha! One critic said aptly something like “if you’re going to position yourself as a competitor to Twitter, one thing you should make sure never happens are system outages.”
I couldn’t agree more. After the weekend I’ve had, that is especially true. Nothing was working for me all weekend. The RCN “customer service” representative actually said to me (and I quote) “I have no reason to speak with you further.” This after I thought we had been having such a nice conversation. Yes, my problem wasn’t solved, but we were chatting and laughing and he was asking me questions about Second Life. Very friendly, I thought, but then he totally dissed me! I was hurt. He left me high and dry with my problem unsolved. So I do not have the patience for another “cool” Internet tool that’s not going to function properly.
I’ll keep tabs on the Twitter and FriendFeed chatter and see what others say when these tools come online (most are still in beta) and see if any of them are truly viable.
InFomentation 