1. Wikipedia wasn't always as popular as it was today. When I was in high school, the idea of it didn't even fly around my Comp II classroom until probably spring semester of my senior year. Even then it wasn't too evolved so I didn't think much of it. Then I got to college and all the professors would say "Wikipedia can't be used as a cited source". I don't even cite Wikipedia, but I do often search Google, read the Wikipedia page, and check out the sources listed on the Wikipedia page. Also, before reading this article, I had never known about Wikinews and Wikiquote, which I was most excited about. I love movie and song quotes, as well as ones from poetry and famous speeches, so this will probably be a new addictive page for me. Thanks for that :)
2. I'm not sure if Wikipedia can ever conquer expertise, but it's getting right up there with the big dogs. The good thing about Wiki. is that sources must be listed when posting, so you (ideally) shouldn't be able to make something up (and if someone does, another person will come along and fix it). This way, it's not like people who sit online and change Wiki all day are the ones we're learning from when we get information from there, but (again, ideally) it is just information that has been hiding in books most of us would never read that has been put on the internet, piece by piece by many authors, for free. I think this is a good thing, and I hope it never goes drastically downhill and becomes completely unreliable.
3. I guess I never really thought about why people give up their time and information so easily and usually for free online. I think it's because I've grown up with the internet for the most part, and it just always seemed to be what people did. When researching for school, we could use reliable sources online, but I never stopped to think about how they got there, and if the person who put them there got paid! I've just grown to think of the internet as just that: a free source and a communication tool. Before Facebook, we had MSN, and my parents thought that was bad; kids sitting at the computer all the time talking about who-knows-what. Now with Facebook, the majority of people do that now too, except it's not who-knows-what anymore, it's everybody-knows-what because anybody can see it! I don't think it's all bad though, if I did I wouldn't be on Facebook as much as I am. I like knowing that if I need to get a hold of someone and I don't have their number or something, I can always use FB. Also, my good friends who go to different colleges, I'm able to see all their pictures and share mine with them so we can keep up. It's fun! (mostly....)
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