I frequently use wikipedia to look up random things or tv shows but I learned a lot about it from this project. My topic is the tv show The Big Bang Theory and there was a ton of information about the show and over 152 references. This article is a perfect example of “fan fiction”. Fans are passionately talking about the article and arguing over what is deemed important and what is unimportant. For example, there is an ongoing discussion about Sara Gilbert’s character Leslie Winkle and what her character should be classified as (recurring, etc.). Most (probably all) of the references linked to my article that still existed which made me think about how genuine this article was and how accurate. People really must care about this show in order to make sure all of the information is correct and interesting. I learned a lot about social knowing because before this project, I never looked at the talk section or the references to make sure what I was reading was backed up by other articles, however, I never really went to wikipedia for serious things like information for papers…only to look up an actor I couldn’t remember or the name of a song or something.
My Wikipedia page was really big as well. Mine had 195 references. Mine had what seemed like to be one person in particular overseeing most of the edits and making most of the comments on other people’s ideas. I was actually really surprised that The O.C., having only 4 seasons, had such an extensive page. It was really interesting to see how detailed it was being such a big fan of the show.
I think its interesting that I had the opposite experience when it came to the amount of information. My topic was “Its always sunny in philadelphia”. I could tell that the contributors were true fans. However the article did lack some information I would have liked to seen. Its interesting to look at comparison of information to the big bang theory page vs the its always sunny page. A show about twenty something year old scientist would have more wiki info than a show about twenty something year old burn outs. The fans of both shows seems to be characterized by wikipedia.
Pretty interesting comparison here between these two show’s Wiki articles specifically in regards to the television audience. That would be an interesting study.
Also, I also never knew about Wiki’s talk pages or even the history pages before doing this assignment. I only used Wikipedia as a starting point for research, but it seems like it could definitely be a place to build community and social knowing on specific topics.
This project has changed my view of using Wikipedia as well. I now know what to look for when trying to verify if the information on Wikipedia is correct.