Wikipedia: Friend or Foe?

After investigating just how Wikipedia disseminates knowledge, I have changed the way in which I use Wikipedia as a source of knowledge. After realizing that Wikipedia's quality of knowledge can be improved or disproved by any person from any part of the world, I have chosen to use Wikipedia only as a starting point for any research that I do. As I read Wikipedia to start off my research, I will take the information I read in with a grain of salt. After gaining a sound base for my topic, I will further research my topic using the resources listed at the end of the Wikipedia page in order to verify the information.

The discussions that take place on Wikipedia are indeed intriguing and often help settle any confusion on the topic being discussed. For example, on the discussion page of William Mulholland, confusion came about when one posted on whether or not Mulholland was solely responsible for the collapse of the St. Francis Dam. In the discussion it was made clear that although William Mulholland built the dam, the Los Angeles government as a whole was responsible for leaving Mulholland as the only engineer for the dam. This cleared up a lot of confusion as to whether or not Mulholland deserved all the blame for the collapsing of the St. Francis Dam and also shed more knowledge on all those you participated and viewed the discussion.

Now, I would definitely join the discussion of any Wikipedia page, especially when false statements are being made in regards to a topic. Correcting these false statements with reliable resources as backup will not only help spread correct knowledge, but also clear up any confusion that was made.