Wikipedia - the site of six billion contributors

Friday, August 24, 2007

I refer to the article "Wikipedia founder admits to serious quality problems" (link) as published by The Register.

Wikipedia has often been seen in the news, usually in a negative light. There are many articles on the Internet bemoaning the unreliability of Wikipedia, due to the fact that any Internet user who wishes to may freely edit the information on Wikipedia, and this may mar the credibility of the information. I for one know that this has become a constant debate in schools: students such as myself like to use Wikipedia, as it is a convenient online encyclopedia covering almost every topic known to the world; however, most teachers snub the website, believing that the information can sometimes be flawed, either due to online vandals who may edit the information on the website with the intention of misleading other users, or unprofessional article writers who may not know their facts.

I chose this article because it succinctly expresses the view of most netizens, even if the article was nowhere near subjective in its criticism of Wikipedia. It revealed that even the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, admitted that the easily-edited website had ‘serious quality problems’. Also, the writer understood that there were two main problems with Wikipedia – the non-factuality of the articles and the quality with which the articles were written.

Admittedly, I use Wikipedia very often for my projects. Wikipedia has its virtues as well – it covers a wide range of topics, and unlike print encyclopedias, it can be updated anytime without much hassle. With anyone being allowed to edit articles, it is updated very often as well. I remember seeing an article on the death of Steve Irwin’s death the day after the incident. Indeed, in a school-based context, with more brains and hands to work, the intellectual exchanges and manpower of group work normally produce a result superior to that of an individually done work, and in less time.

However, as the clichéd adage goes, too many cooks spoil the broth – and in this case, we’re looking at a potential six billion cooks, with the widespread influence of the Internet. With so many differing opinions, there may possibly be tugs-of-war, with every netizen wanting to express his opinion. Also, some of the cooks (pardon the extended metaphor) may not have the culinary expertise required for good broth, thus spoiling it.

The Wikipedia fanatics think otherwise, however. They feel that if people are not satisfied with the information on Wikipedia, they can always edit it themselves. A valid point, but they are assuming that everyone is like them, and has a passion for editing articles. Most people, like me, visit the website to get information, not to edit any mistakes there. However, their chagrin and indignation is understandable. I understand that many Wikipedia fanatics spend whole hours on the computer, browsing articles and helping to correct or add to them – the Wikipedia equivalent of a ranger - and now, there are people accusing the online encyclopedia of being unprofessional and poorly written. The article concedes that there are people who believe religiously in Wikipedia, and insulting the website would be tantamount to questioning someone’s religion.

At the end of the day, I feel that neither camp has gotten the measure of the issue completely. Wikipedia was created with the aim of a utopian community – all benevolent, specializing in a specific field, and helping to share information with the world – in mind, but this is obviously not the case, as online vandals and unprofessional writers have demonstrated. Perhaps Wikipedia should be more exclusive with regards to the people who are allowed to edit the articles – this would be a fitting compromise between both extremist schools of thought.
give me a good grade pleeeease! 11:20 PM

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Early Maturity... or Not?

Sunday, June 24, 2007

10 Is the New 15 As Kids Grow Up Faster (link)

Children between the ages of 8-12 have been found to have acquired interests in things that a teenager would normally be interested in, such as pop music and teenage slang. This has gotten parents and professionals worried about this trend. After all, they probably have a set of conservative values regarding young children that they acquired from their generation – that all pre-teens should be pure and innocent. That young children are behaving like sex-charged teenagers these days reflects negatively on the morality of today’s society, and foreshadows a trend which may lead to further moral degradation of the society of tomorrow.

It cannot be denied that there are differences between the society of yesterday and that of today – and I attribute this to technology. The people of yesterday were largely conservative, especially when young, as their only exposure to the society was through their parents, their benign schoolteachers, and their equally innocent peers. At most, they had the radio or the television as their link with the “outside world”, but these forms of media were mostly self-censored, in order to appeal to the family. As such, young children did not have much opportunity to be “corrupted”. Now, with many more mediums of technology, young children (fed constantly with technological gadgets by their apathetic parents) are now exposed to a whole world of information – not all of which are meant for the eyes of children. The children can now access teenage and even adult websites – and needless to say, they will be corrupted much more easily than in the past, when you also take into account the fact that adults themselves have become much more liberal when it comes to values.

These children cannot bear all of the blame, though. With Internet now a given in most houses, children, inquisitive by nature, will tend to want to explore the Net – and stumble upon undesirable information. Also, it is only human nature to want to appear impressive in front of one’s peers – and from my experience, children would want to be cool by appearing older than they really are.

The parents should definitely not bear the blame for being too “old-school and inflexible” in their thinking. For someone who has grown up in a conservative and morally upright society, the sight of young children behaving like immoral adults would be too large a paradigm shift for them. After all, which parent could bear to see their little children behaving immorally?

If this trend carries on, it will doubtlessly have negative consequences on the society. I believe that the character of a person is shaped in his childhood, and obviously, someone who has been exposed to the wrong set of moral values will grow up with them – he may grow up to be a sex maniac, or a pornography addict, or someone who spends his time lazing about, listening to mind-numbing hip-hop or punk rock songs. As a teen myself, I can attest to the fact that doing typically teenage activities, such as listening to pop music, has a negative effect on me. After all, it is not hard to find pop songs with vulgarities and sex references in them, and one could say that these songs corrupted me slightly – an inevitable outcome from listening to such, one may say, trashy songs.
give me a good grade pleeeease! 3:06 AM

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Spare the rod, educate the child

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I refer to the article NZ passes disputed smacking bill on BBC News.

Summary

This article talks about the New Zealand parliament passing a controversial and highly debated bill disallowing parents to hit their children with too much force. In the application of this law, the police will be used as arbiters to decide if force used has breached the “allowed” amount. This law is a change from the past, where an ambiguous law allowing parents to use “reasonable force” to discipline their child.

Reflection

Spare the rod, spoil the child? Upon reading this article, I thought of the controversy surrounding corporal punishment in schools that exists right here in Singapore. While some teachers feel that corporal punishment is the best (or only) way to discipline children, more students, their egos having expanded since the previous century, are indignant that teachers should not be able to use brute force to punish them. And now, New Zealand even thinks that parents should not be able to use excessive force to discipline their OWN children.

Firstly, is brute force effective? I think not. When I was young, my father resorted to using a cane to punish my wrongdoings. While I cried my heart out after that, I do not feel that these acts of corporal punishment helped to shape my character in a moral way. Rather, it stirred up feelings of bitterness and resentment in me, and I am sure that corporal punishment would have the same effect in other children. At most, corporal punishment would terrify the child in question to not doing wrong things, but it most probably would not explicitly inform the child why he could not do something. Therefore, I feel that the ‘rod’ would not have any long-lasting effect on the morality of a child.

Next, should parents be allowed to discipline their children using force? Afterall, the parents were the ones who begot the children. However, I agree with the recently passed law. Children, even if still under the protection of their parents, should not have to suffer the emotional and physical torture inflicted by their parents. In fact, I feel that the fact that the parents are supposed to have a blood bond with their children makes it worse. The children, after having endured a beating from their parents, may feel that their parents, the people they trusted and loved so much, and become depressed and ruin their lives, as a result.

Alternatively, one must also consider the view of the parents. Having watched their precious children grow up with them, they must feel anguish when their children misbehave, or do inappropriate things. Indeed, some parents even see their children as a mirror for them to see themselves in, and thus may feel further sorrow at watching their children tread the proverbial criminal path of no return. In this case, they may lose all reason, and resort to disciplining their children physically. However, does it mean that their actions can be justified by their anguish or sorrow? They should also understand the feelings of their own children, who may have committed wrongdoing out of sheer innocence, or led astray by errant peers.

In conclusion, it is my opinion that while the feelings of the parents must be considered, they should maintain presence of mind while disciplining their children, and understand that their children are still immature. Also, the education system as a whole must stop using the corporal punishment, and instead groom the leaders of tomorrow via effective morality lessons incorporated into the syllabus.

(504 words)
give me a good grade pleeeease! 3:51 AM

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Phishing for money

Monday, May 14, 2007

I refer to the article ID Thieves' New Tricks at RD.com (Link to article).

Reflection

While technology is advancing and growing rapidly, it is also a new way for hackers and identity thieves now have more options to steal identities, PIN numbers and money.

The article summarized the various ways taken by online identity thieves to prey on unwary online users, tricking them into handing over their credit card or ATM card numbers. Indeed, the Internet has become a great way for identity thieves to strike, as it affords them the anonymity to strike bold deals and arrange for normally-preposterous sounding propositions. Although the article is not local, it should be noted that such scams and phishes could also happen in Singapore, given the all-encompassing nature of the Internet. Personally, I get the odd phishing email every now and then, which frustrates me to no end, and I am pretty sure that many Singaporeans currently face the same problem. Also, while most of us may assume that we are above falling for such scams, the many cases of people that have been the victims of countless scams and phishes that have been reported in the papers should be warning enough for us. The article rightly pointed out that while computer users are getting more savvy and are now able to distinguish real email from fake, the phishermen are similarly adapting to the mindsets of their potential victims, changing their baiting tactics to keep up with the times.

Apart from being a nuisance to web-users, this problem is evidently a great problem for the government and law enforcers as well, not to mention credit card and ATM card companies. While the law enforcers appear to spend sizeable chunks of their time trying to hunt down the apparently ‘anonymous’ web criminals, spending much money on state-of-the-art equipment to facilitate this, the credit card companies do not have a much easier task either. The article relates many cases of inconvenience to such companies, who may suddenly have their cards hijacked or machines malfunctioning as a result of identity thefts. The repercussions could be, and often are, severe, especially in terms of reputation of the company – usually irreversible damage; while the online thieves take to the Net to earn a quick buck, they are not realizing that they are setting off a chain reaction of societal problems.

To solve the problem, I feel that prevention is better than cure. In other words, we should not be looking to pick up the pieces by catching criminals, but success in deterring the criminals could be achieved if there was a heightened social awareness of the dangers. To rectify the problem, computer users must know that they are not dealing with the usual robbers and burglars in this advanced age, but rather a band of online thieves, who wield not swords, but innocuous-looking money-making propositions, friendly introductory letters, and such. I feel that law enforcers should make good use of the media to project this message, stressing utmost emphasis on carefulness and discernment when opening emails.

(494 words)
give me a good grade pleeeease! 7:06 AM

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Will this affect our school ranking?

Saturday, March 3, 2007

For the purposes of the "different categories" rule, this shall be classified under "Issues regarding teenagers" :)

I refer to the article MP Denise Phua calls on Singaporeans to do away with "T-Score Syndrome" from Channelnewsasia.com (link to article).

Summary

MP Denise Phua calls for the mindset of the average Singaporean to be shifted away from the prevailing "T-score syndrome", an obsession and over-reliance on grades.

Reflection

Ms Phua points out a very relevant yet unglamorous distinguishing fact about Singaporeans: our over-reliance on school academic results as a gauge of a student’s ability. Singapore is a country renown for its zeal in providing the best in all areas, so it is ironic that little is being done to correct the fact that we are doing too little to establish ourselves as something more than just an exam result-crazy population.

In the past, extra-curricular activities were renamed to co-curricular activities, in a bid to shift the emphasis of schools from just academic studies to a more holistic education, but it is apparent that with this change, the mindsets of most Singaporeans, be it students or school administrators, have not changed one iota. Most schools, for example, are not willing to take in students who have special interests in arts or other non-academic disciplines, if they are sure that the decision would affect their overall ranking. Ironically, most of the only schools to do so are the academically better ones who offer the Integrated Programme as an alternative to the O’ Levels. Taking in such students would then have no consequence on their ‘ranking’, so to speak.

I feel that above all, Singapore schools are too caught up in the school ‘ranking’ system to care about more pressing matters, such as the future of talented students who are not exam smart. Life should after all not just be about rankings and reputation. The interests of every single student must be considered. To refuse a student from studying just because it may pull down his school’s overall ranking is unfair, and it will be a decision that may haunt Singapore in the future. It has been proven countless times in the past that good grades may not lead to somebody with a successful career. Therefore, lousy grades should not condemn a person’s future.

Another point Ms Phua brings up is the fact that Singaporeans tend to treat the university route as THE route to go to. My opinion is that some talents, having been stifled by the narrow-minded and grades-centric Singaporean society, may have grown frustrated of the lack of opportunities to prove himself, and therefore gone overseas to carve their career. Ironically, Singapore currently relies strongly on foreign talents. Why search so far out when there can be talents in our own country?

Being an ex-GEP student in RI who has had the doors of every school practically opened to me, my knowledge of schools still taking the O’ Levels and still on the school ranking system is limited, and the problem is not as clear-cut to me as if it would have been if I had not been in one of the ‘stellar’ schools in Singapore. However, being someone who is slightly cynical of the overemphasis placed on grades and certificates that in fact will have little practical use in the future, I can understand Ms Phua’s concern about the over-importance on school grades that Singapore students and schools place.

(502 words. Cunningly sidesteps mark penalty.)

To get a high aggregate for PSLE: $200 worth of tuition. To get people to stop bothering about PSLE altogether: Priceless.

References
Yay! I finished this on the eve of the deadline! Didn't really follow the rubrics as much, since I'm more or less familiar with it now. This may lead to precious marks being lost, though. Hope not, anyhow. PLEASE COMMENT! No one will, probably, since lots of tests await.
give me a good grade pleeeease! 11:58 PM

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Don't count your babies before they hatch

Friday, February 23, 2007

I refer to the article Japan's first 'baby hatch' has labour pain on Channelnewsasia.com (link to article).

The article writes about the plan of a Roman Catholic hospital in Kumamoto to create the first 'baby hatch' in Japan, where parents can drop off their unwanted infants anonymously to be cared for by the hospital. This is a bid to increase the birth rate in Japan. However, the conservative Japanese government are concerned about the implications of the baby hatch, even though they have found no legal reason to block the move.

Reflection

Should Japan open a baby hatch? The idea of a baby hatch was conceived in the light of Japan’s low birth rate, which is partly caused by pregnant women who abort because they do not feel prepared for motherhood. The baby hatch will give such women the option of delivering the baby before placing it in the baby hatch, instead of resorting to abortion or infanticide to escape the responsibilities of motherhood. When the baby reaches a certain age, the hospital will then find foster parents for him.

This idea by Jikei Hospital in Kumamoto represents a concerted Japanese effort in trying to increase the birth rate of Japan. Indeed, it is one that Singapore can always adopt, if our plans to bring up birth rates fail. Our government has tried many methods to change our low birth rate, including implementing the ‘baby bonuses’, which provides financial aid for parents in bringing their child up. However, some unprepared couples would rather go ahead with the abortion than take the money, which many feel is not enough even to raise the child for a few years.

Despite the advantages, the Japanese government is cautious about the plan. Afterall, one must also consider the feelings of the born baby. Even with a foster family, the child may grow up disillusioned with life, thinking that his biological parents did not want him. The baby hatch may also encourage unprepared mothers to be flippant about the pregnancy, with the knowledge that when she delivers, she will not have to care for the baby.

However, I support the baby hatch.

Speaking as someone who has watched gruesome abortion videos during science lessons, I feel that abortion is as immoral as abandonment, if less criminal. Going by a theory that fetuses are living things and can feel pain, it is also much more cruel. Despite being a mere surgical procedure on the mother’s side, it is the brutal murder of a defenseless creature. The baby hatch is an opportunity for the baby to find foster parents under the hospital's scheme, and to begin a new life under them. Of course, population-wise, one baby hatch will not increase the birth rate much, but if it becomes a practice to follow for other hospitals in the country, Japan might have their desired birth rate in a couple of decades’ time.

Having said all these, I am merely making assumptions on how the unprepared parents, or a grown up product of the baby hatch would feel. As someone living in a country where the baby hatch is not implemented, I can only assume the benefits it would bring to the country it is located in. However, this article introduced me to it, and also reminded me of how we should be finding ways and means to get around the stark underpopulation that Singapore faces. Using money and financial incentives is after all not the only way to solve things, and neither is it the most feasible one.

(498 words)

References
Well, well. I finished it. I trimmed a 700 word article into this! Hopefully the essence hasn't been compromised. I think my chang wen suo duan skills have been considerably honed! Bring on the Chinese CT!
give me a good grade pleeeease! 10:02 PM

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words

Sunday, February 4, 2007

I know that words can kill a person. Or worse - get him sued.

So I'm going to remain politically correct.
give me a good grade pleeeease! 9:02 PM

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