New Media Workshop

Here is the link to Climate of Hong Kong in Wikipedia.

I add this, major climate changes in the past decade into it.

Beside the two sub sections on the page, which are Climate of Hong Kong and Tropical cyclones, now when anybody visit the page in Wikipedia is going to know some major changes of the city in the past decade.

Actually those information are available at Hong Kong Observatory, yet some kind of modifications for the update process are made and then grouped together to provide a more convenience page for visitors now.

And here is the history page which shows the editing process.

Well, firstly I really do not think it is journalism if that is explained in a narrow sense. General journalism produces news feature or feature etc… All these are much different from a encyclopedia like Wiki. Although Wikipeida has timely updated versions the core nature of it is not the same.

Yet, as mentioned, the frequently updated version does correlate with some broader journalistic value, say for example, the Oscar Awards list is nearly updated simutaneously as the ceremony goes on today.

Therefore, I would rather term it as a timely encyclopedia, which is the opposite to the Britannica.

It is clear that the case of the Alabama couple has shown much difference in perception between the common people what Wiki is. The couple tend to have believed more than they should by making “decision in part by referring to material from articles in Wikipedia”.

Opposite to this, the judge commented that materials “culled from the Internet do not — at least on their face — meet standards of reliability”.

Yes, in actual terms, like what Middlebury College claims, that “Wikipedia is not appropriate for research”, and the thing is, “somewhat surprisingly, Wikipedia doesn’t necessarily disagree with them.”

Actually, this is imaginable, cause when I was trying to edit the Wiki page, it is as easy as editing a blog of mine. Even if I do not have the intention to put in incorrect informtaion, somehow it is hard to guarantee all Wiki editors do the same. Spelling mistakes are often found, and yet these are minor mistakes, greater ones come when someone intentionally play with that.

Therefore, Wikipedia should act more like a data bank which gives you some basic knowledge or at least information to a certain topic, but after that, if you are making an important decision like the couple, or are hoping to cite something from there, you should have tried to assure that what inside are correct, by going through other reliable sites.

After all, unless Wikipedia is the only source of a certain topic, one should not solely rely on them, though obviously, for some general entertainment news like Oscar Awards, it is toally fine to believe in what is in there.