Blog vs. Wiki

To provide factual information or let creative juices flow, is often the question to consider when differentiating between wikis and blogs. Historically, wiki's have been go-to sources for quick, complete information. Although rarely recognized by academics as credible sources, wiki giants like Wikipedia have extraordinarily high accuracy rates. Wiki's differ from encyclopedias in that a penguin could post on a wiki page, if it so happened said penguin could type in a language supported by wikipedia. The point is, there aren't strict requirements as to the derivative of the knowledge-a characteristic of encyclopedias. For instance, if the same penguin wanted to post in an encyclopedia, references from reputable academia would be required to verify the accuracy of the information provided...quite a difficult task. So it seems wiki's are a great thing, nearly unlimited knowledge at your fingertips. But what happens when the validity of the information is in question? Suddenly free isn't so free. "Wikipedia: No longer the Wild West" explores this very idea in detail and makes mention of the idea that people will govern themselves. In my opinion, a silly notion. Pardon my interest in history, but throughout history people have never been able to govern themselves without some sort of policing agency. Self -interest is a characteristic of humans that's been around since the beginning. I can't comment on the nature of Wikipedia's policing activities, but as of 2009 they provided editors for only certain pages. A neat feature would be to have public pages within the original wikipedia page where readers can contribute their own ideas to the topic at hand.

Freedom of ideas is the idea that has progressed humanity through the dark ages into a time where we know more about the world (and other worlds) than ever thought possible. When we regulate the creative capacity of human beings, the progressive nature of society is crippled. Why should we just stop at the "right" information? There must be a new media outlet where human beings can creatively express ideas in a manner that could benefit our fellow bipedal friends. Enter, the blog.

The blog has been a topic of much discussion over the past ten years, whether it's because of the monetization of public blogs, or just the idea of creativity in a new vehicle remains to be seen. One thing is for certain is that the blog acts as a gap filler for the shortcomings of wikis. Remember the wiki-writing penguin? This same penguin can now write a blog comprised of the same information while providing an arctic twist-exemplifying his creative nature. Perhaps the information isn't entirely accurate (who would have known that penguins aren't the best mathematicians?), but the accuracy is to be taken with a grain of salt by the reader and is expected as such. Societal progress has always been a chain reaction, using previous ideas of someone else and expanding on them. This very idea is discussed in "How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere?", where the author makes note of the bilateral communication between the author and the readers through the use of comment exchange. Let the reader decide what's right and what's wrong.

In conclusion, albeit both forms of new media, blogs and wikis wildly contrast. Blogs capture the creative essence of human beings, where as wiki's attempt to distinguish between right and wrong. Neither is wrong per se, just different.