Lecture 6: Exploring Wikipedia

Article 1: Snowboarding

1. Is this an accurate article?

The article about snowboarding goes really deep, and has a lot of the history behind it.

Now I usually say snowboarding was founded by some crazy surfers from California which took their boards up in the mountains and rode on snow. This article confirms this and also talks about the big inventors in the snowboard industry. It also covers all the events, styles, movies, competitions and a lot of other stuff. It mentions some of the most famous riders through history and today. The external link section and the referencing section contain a lot of sites which is filled with information about this sport. All this makes the article quite accurate and I think it is very reliable information.

2. Does it cover all the basic facts that you'd need to understand this topic?

Like I said in the first question, yes it does. There even is stuff in this article about safety and precautions, and what magazines and films there are out there.

3. Does this article follow the Wikipedia guidelines for useful articles?

The Wikipedia guidelines are about being neutral, stick to the subject, displaying facts and back up the article with external links or references. The article about snowboarding contains all of these guidelines but maybe lack a little bit on the neutral front.

4. Is this article fair and balanced, or is it biased towards a particular side or argument?

The article is written in a very factual way. It takes into consideration the negative facts about snowboarding with injuries and how to be prepared for that, but you can also see that this article is written by someone who loves snowboarding because it might seem like an advertisement at certain points. But I think that is all good, because it is a great sport and it is fun.

5. What changes would you make to this article to improve it and make it useful for the wider wikipedia community?

Nothing actually. I think this article is well written and don’t need any changes. You get a basic understanding of what snowboarding is about and the major things in it.

Article 2: Angels and Airwaves (AVA)

1. Is this an accurate article?

Angels and Airwaves is a relatively new band formed by former Blink 182 lead-singer, Tom Delonge. This article tells their history in a good way, referring to several interviews, articles and Angels and Airwaves own homepage. It is accurate enough but still there are a lot of things in the article which isn’t referred at all, which makes it all a little untrustworthy if you read it for the first time and have no clue from before hand.

2. Does it cover all the basic facts that you'd need to understand this topic?

Well it is music. The history of the band is described very vaguely, but the main thing that might be missing is the question ‘why’. Why did Tom Delonge start this band? Now it says a lot about the albums and prior to those, but still everything is much generalized and it is hard to find any relation to it.

3. Does this article follow the Wikipedia guidelines for useful articles?

This article follows the guidelines to some extent. It misses out on the factual side a little bit because of the bad referencing at some points. I think this article is more about letting people explore AVA’s homepage and finding out by themselves. To summarize, it is neutral, verifying to some extent and factual to a certain point.

4. Is this article fair and balanced, or is it biased towards a particular side or argument?

There isn’t much of an argument or sides in this article. It is just plain facts about their CD’s, a little about Ryan Sinn who left the band (which might be the only negative sided thing about the article). It is more of a chronological story of events than anything else.

5. What changes would you make to this article to improve it and make it useful for the wider wikipedia community?

Add some more whys and what’s in it. Why the band got started, what their plan is, what kind of music it is and why they play this way. I think adding that would get people more aware of who they (AVA) are and what they do and mean by what they do.