Wikipedia-- the good, the bad, and the lies

Wikipedia again felt another blow with the revelation that one of the company’s high-profile managers lied about his credentials. The wildly popular “online encyclopedia” relies on legions of anonymous Internet users to write and edit entries on over a million topics. When the company was founded in 2001 everyone has debated whether or not to believe anything that goes up on the site, but nothing has ever been questioned. But now it has thanks to a person previously known as Essjay. Essjay is described as a volunteer site administrator, among the more prominent and respected members of the Wiki community. According to an article in the New York Times Essjay held a Ph.D. in theology and a degree in canon law and was a tenured professor of religion at a private university. Still he dedicated hours a day to policing the site for mistakes, misinformation and deliberate mischief. Later in a New York Times editors note the magazine revealed that, in fact, “Essjay” is a 24-year-old named Ryan Jordan, who holds no advanced degrees, has never taught, and was recently hired to work for Wikia, Wikipedia’s for-profit online magazine site. The New Yorker did not respond to a request for comment, but the controversy has been fuelled by less-than-contrite responses from both Jordan who states that his lies were meant to thwart would-be stalkers and other miscreants, and that it was the magazines fault for failing to realize his identity was faked. Also, a comment was made by Wikipedias founder Jimmy Wales, who told the magazine that Jordan’s lies were just part of his pseudonym. For a company attempting to transition from online co-operative into a genuine media business, the Essjay affair raises serious questions.

I think that Wikipedia is full of lies and that it would be hard for me to use their resources on my assignments. Anyone can but anything that they want on the website if it is true or not. I really don’t think that Wikipedia has a lot of people filtering what goes on to the descriptions. Since schools now have the technology to block sites being used this would be a good one to block. Some kids believe anything that they read, I guess it is up to the students if they want to put it on their projects or not but they should not have the choice. Teachers should not let the kids look up false information, even if not everything on Wikipedia is wrong there still is a great chance that it could be. It is up to the school to let the students use Wikipedia but it is not reliable and it is your own fault if you fail your assignment because what you read was not true.

Internet Abductions

Alicia Kozakiewicz, 13, was abducted outside her Pitsburgh home by a 38- year old man she met in a Yahoo chat room. She has been held hostage, tortured and sexually assaulted for four days in a weapon- filled dungeon. Kozakiewicz was rescued by FBI agents on January 4 2002. The FBI was tipped by a Florida man who had seen a video of Alicia made by her tormentor, who hadposted that he had captured a teenager. The FBI eventually traced his screen name, provided by the tipster, to his townhouse. Determined to not let what happened to her happen to any more children she started talking to groups of kids, warning them of the dangers of the Internet. Kosakiewicz does not remember most things that happend to her while she was held hostage, she also has very little recognition of her childhood memories. After the time she was held hostage she has had a facination of tinkerbell, her parents believe that it was because they had went to Disney Land when they were younger. Alicia recalls how she met her abductor (Tyree) online, she said that he was first known as Christine. Then after months of believing that it was actually a girl the abductor told her that he was lying. He played with her mind and for some reason Alicia got in his car on New Years Day. Alicia notices that she does make alot of kids realize that there are people out there trying to hurt them. On some occasions she has heard kids say that they were going to close their MySpace accounts as soon as they got home. Kozakiewicz wont speak about her abductor because it makes her sick. She still calls the agents who saved her on the anniversary of her rescue. She is participating in an FBI video about Internet saftey and says she wants to join the FBI after she recieves a master's degree in forensic psychology.

Statistics say that everyday there are over 2,000 kids are reported missing- that is one every 40 seconds. Every parent should monitor what there child is doing. There are many ways that a parent can prevent a child from being abducted by:
-Keep a current, up-to-date photograph of your child that includes age, height, weight and other helpful descriptions.
-Teach kids important phone numbers and where to go in an emergency.
-Monitor your child's use of the Internet, especially at night.
-Never let your kids go anywhere alone. Know where and with whom your children will be at all times.
-Agree on a place to meet in case you get separated from your kids.
-A child can also prevent themselves from being abducted by:
-Never walk alone, especially after dark.
-Never go anywhere with someone you don't know, no matter how nice the person seems.
-Tell a parent where you are going, especially if you change locations or will be late.
-Never give personal information or photos to someone over the Internet.
-If anyone tries to take you away, yell, "This is not my father (mother)."
Just start out small but give your child the information and things that happen when you tell people on the internet your information to inform them the dangers.