Facts about Wikis

Facts about Wikis

1.     The most important fact to name is that a wiki is ultimately a page that can be edited, by anyone.

2.     Wikis allow you to link to pages that don’t even exist yet.

3.     The purpose of having a wiki able to be edited is that people around the world can share their ideas at one place online. Like Cunningham said, it’s in our nature to tell stories and converse with each other, so why not be able to do it on online documents about information people want to know or are interested in.

4.     The world’s most famous wiki is Wikipedia, and contains almost 7 times the amount of documents/articles than the Encyclopedia Britannica which has been published since 1768, even though Wikipedia is only nine years old this year.  Obviously something is working within Wikipedia otherwise the numbers wouldn’t be this high and people wouldn’t use it.

5.     Wikis aren’t just used to share information people on the internet are seeking but also have many more functions. They can be used for documentation, meeting agendas for companies or school projects, and internal blogging.

USA Patriot Act

 Some news reports have suggested that the Bush administration used the USA Patriot Act to look at the e-mails of American citizens without a warrant. What’s your position if this was indeed the case? Should citizens be willing to give up their privacy? Does it bother you to know that your online communications are very potentially semi-private instead of private?

            I am both against this and for this. It definitely bothers me to know that anyone can potentially see all my conversations I have had with my friends and family, even though I have nothing to hide or anything, I don’t want the world to be able to see everything I am talking about. On the other hand though, events like 9.11 could easily be planned in the U.S. via email and no one would ever know about it if email was completely private. I would ultimately say that I would be against this act because it’s not just my privacy that would be given up but the millions of people that live in the U.S. as well. Email and the internet are such an integrated part of our everyday lives, to say that the things you write on the internet that you only mean for one or a couple of other people’s eyes can be read by the government without you even knowing about it is very invasive and I think they would have a hard time trying to convince the public of it.

WEP and WPA

If your mother uses Wi-Fi at home to send you e-mail, and your home network is not protected by WEP or WPA, what reasons would you suggest to her for enabling one of these two protocols at home if the liability of reading those e-mails still exists once her message leaves your home, on its way to school?

            The reason I would tell her is the simple fact of wanting privacy. Even though its electronic mail, it’s still mail and I would like to know that no one else is going to read the conversation except for the person it’s being sent to. If you are over the age of 18 in the U.S. then it’s illegal for even your parents to read any mail that is sent to you, even if it’s from your doctors; why, then, should virtually anyone in the world who know to hack in or even just be able to browse through your conversations online? Having WEP or WPA would allow for the both of us to have a lot more comfort that we are solely only speaking to each other and no one else. Also, I would tell her that it doesn’t just end with our emails back and forth to each other, but any other email and other things she posts online that she thinks are private.

Drug companies and websites

The official website for the drug Olanzapine probably didn’t mention the fact it might cause diabetic symptoms in patients. Another website obviously did. Commercials on TV now are required to mention possible side effects. Should drug companies be required to come clean about situations like the one with Eli Lilly’s Olanzapine in their commercial websites? Why or why not?

            I think they should have to because I personally know someone who has had a similar situation happen to them in which they were taking medication to help one problem but then ended up getting a specific disease along with thousands of others who had the same thing happen to them. It’s only fair for the companies to admit that they didn’t come outright with all of the possibilities the drug can cause. I think it’s important for it to be mandatory now for drug companies to state the possible side effects and diseases a medicine can cause or lead to but I think it’s just as important for the companies who didn’t have to do so in the past to tell the public now. I personally would want to know if I had been taking a medicine for years not knowing I could develop breast or some other cancer from it and although I’d be upset just to find out today, it’s better than nothing because then I could choose to discontinue taking the medicine if I wanted to. Also, for the company I feel like that is information that would leak onto the internet somehow and I think it looks better and more responsible on the company’s end to put the complete truth of whatever information they withheld before to the public instead of finding out other ways.

Although with a case like Lilly’s one, it can obviously hurt that companies reputation even just beyond that specific product because even if you win a legal battle to take all the stuff and documents people posted about the lawsuit, etc. could and probably will shop up on the internet somehow, it’s ultimately their fault and more importantly their responsibility. It’s only fair that if a drug company or whoever didn’t list all the possible side effects, etc. or at least have them available and open to the public as much as possible that they should come clean about letting the public down in that way because you aren’t talking about just money or anything but people’s health. There could also be the issue of admitting knowing that a drug could cause a certain disease and more people wanting to sue the company, etc. I think if information about a drug causing diabetes or whatever disease is leaked to the public in whatever way and although it’s going to appear as one of a top internet searches for that drug, it’s going to look better on the company if they talk about it themselves first. I think this is the only way to get people to trust using that drug or drug company again.

Community of practice

Consider the concept of a “community of practice.” How can such a community offer opportunities for learning?

            This type of community can offer many types of opportunities for learning. First of all, discussion boards and other types of websites can help with networking and business matters, learning advice from others who have experienced things hands-on. This community as allows for growth in social matters, school, and other areas of life outside of the work field. The internet and the ability to form blog posts, discussion boards, group instant messaging, have made this concept and type of community that much easier to become a part of on an everyday basis. Obviously getting together in groups or business meetings are still very helpful and valuable to people today but the internet has just added that easiness factor and therefore we see many more people participating in putting in their thoughts and experiences for others to read and learn from. I know I personally have learned things whether it comes to ideas on paper topics, job hunting advice or even cooking help online by searching and finding posts with peoples own personal answers.

"Invisible"

If Shirky is right, and we’re headed to a period where social media tools like YouTube, Flickr, and social networks like Facebook become “invisible,” what’s the impact on things you spend money on as consumers? Books? Movies? Music?

            I think the impact of the things we spend money on, like books, movies, and music, are in the middle between visible and invisible. I think the tangible things, like clothes and books have become invisible in Shirky’s terms in that they have been around since we have been born so we don’t really think anything of them; they aren’t something new. I think other things like music and movies are a little more invisible just because we can’t touch them and at least for our generation they have been around since we can remember. From what I got from the book, these things become invisible because we don’t take a second to think about them, they are just are an everyday part of our life and we sometimes or a lot of times take them for granted. It’s hard to even think about or get our heads around the fact that once upon a time there wasn’t even electricity to turn a light on, let alone power a whole houseful of technological toys and gadgets. I know I personally take a lot of these things mentioned above, like music, movies, internet, books, etc. for granted because they have been a part of my life for awhile if not since I was born. This, to me, has turned many of these things to become “invisible”.