Collective Unintelligence

From wsuwiki

1 Overview
2 Purpose
3 Key Points
4 Never Trust Your First Source
5 Pay Attention to the Source
6 Blogs and Message Boards
7 Conclusion
8 Resources

Overview

The internet can be a vast resource of information on just about any topic that any person can think of. For all of its benefits, this so called “collective intelligence” of the internet has a less appealing side as well. The ease with which any one person can put information out on the World Wide Web means that everyone does. And just because someone authors a webpage detailing how to wire a home or paint a car, it doesn’t mean that they were an authority on the topic. It doesn’t necessarily mean that even knew what they have any practical experience at all with what they are writing about. This is what can be called the “collective unintelligence” of the World Wide Web. Anyone can effortlessly create a post or a website about any subject. In fact, as illustrated in the article Something is Wrong With The Internet many people intentionally falsify stories and information on the internet for various reasons, including simply getting more hits on their site. This fact alone should be the first alarm when making a decision to use the internet as an information resource. There is no governing body that monitors the World Wide Web to ensure that every website is truthful and accurate. This would be a ridiculously impossible task to take on. That being said the responsibility rests on the shoulders of the Internet's users to make sure that the information they are finding is in fact valid.

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to illustrate some pitfalls that can be run into because of the collective misinformation present on the Internet. Additionally it will hopefully assist in demonstrating how to more effectively avoid being fooled by collective misinformation. For the purpose of this document the topic of automobile carburetors, which too many can be an extremely technical topic, will be used to examine some of the reasons it is so important to be able to discern useful from faulty information on the internet. There are several things a person can do in order to make sure that they do not become the victim of bad information on the internet.

Key Points

Never trust one source alone, especially if it's the first source you find
Make use of sources from technical, professional, industry, or official sites whenever possible.
Be particularly careful when using blogs and message boards to get answers to your questions.

Never Trust Your First Source

In an excerpt from the Colorado State University teaching resources website it's stated that much of the information on the internet is "unreliable, inappropriate, or simply uninteresting." Taking this into consideration, the best tip for anyone using the web as a research tool is that they should never trust the first hit they come across to be the “end all, be all” for their research. This holds especially true if they are researching a topic that they have little or no practical experience and knowledge of. Back to the carburetor. If a person is looking for carburetor tuning instructions and has no first-hand experience with this, it's likely that they will have a hard time making definitive decisions as to whether or not an article they are reading contains any misinformation. Any person with just as little experience and knowledge on the subject can read a few articles and then turn around and write an article of their own on the same subject. All they would need to do is sift through the web and harness its collective intelligence in order to turn out their article and pose as an authority on the subject. The problem with this is that they probably didn’t know enough about the topic to start with, didn’t have enough knowledge to scrutinize good information from bad, and through their own actions created an addition to the collective unintelligence of the web. That’s why the responsibility lies with the researcher to utilize multiple resources on the web to educate their self so they can discriminate between good and bad information. There are enough resources out there that once anyone begins to seriously research a topic they can effectively begin screening information.

Pay Attention to the Source

As stated earlier, nothing on the internet needs to be approved by an overseeing body. This is not to say that all sources of information on the internet are bad sources. Established and trusted online journals can have a vested interest in providing truthful information as their livelihood relies on it. Online publications of technical references and instruction manuals are also sources if information that can usually be trusted. You would be far more likely to find an article detailing proper tuning instructions for a carburetor in publications like Hot Rod Magazine or Street Rodder magazine than you would in some randomly authored Joe Blow's back yard mechanic website. Magazines, technical journals, and online references are authored, edited, and approved with consideration given to information, industry reputation, and continuing business. This isn’t to say that information from sources other than these are not good resources. It simply becomes more important to scrutinize the information contained in articles when they are not from a notably credible source. According to Virtualsalt.com here are a few pieces of information that, when present, can help distinguish a site’s credibility: Author’s name, title/position, any organizational affiliations, date the document or page was created and the author’s contact information. Additionally, if the source you are reviewing has cited research in their documentation, chances are the information contained in that article is valid, or at least backed up by fact rather than opinion. If most or all of these pieces are present then the article is more likely, but still not guaranteed, to be a good source of information.

Blogs and Message Boards

Blogs and message boards can be a great way to get your questions answered. However, it can also be a great way to find quite a few answers from people who think that they are an authority on a topic just because it’s their weekend hobby. The biggest concern about getting technical help from message boards is that people try something once, it works, and that’s their answer to every problem. For example, in a message board on Hotrodders.com a member is trying to get help for a carburetor that keeps flooding. In their haste to “educate” other message board participants a latecomer to the discussion mocks 4 contributors by stating “Oh come now fellas! Don’t over think things!” He makes the assumption that because he got lucky fixing his carburetor by whacking it with a hammer that everyone else’s flooding problems can be cured in the same way. Had he only taken the time to really read their contributions he would have see that the issue that "hammer whacking" fixes had already been ruled out. The type of person you would hope to get a hold of is exemplified in this article, who asks a myriad of questions and guides the person through their carburetor and related issues for over two months in painstaking detail. The more questions someone asks you about your problem, the more likely it is that they know what they are talking about. If someone completely ignores the useful input and questions of others in a message board and chimes in with answers that have already been ruled out, chances are they don’t have the expertise necessary to be answering your particular question. Beware of the cookie cutter contributor.

Conclusion

In the end it is up the website visitor/researcher to make sure that they get the best information possible from the web. There is a lot of useful and helpful information out there with just as much collective unintelligence to sift through as well. And remember that this is just one resource which is influenced by its own opinions and research experience. So don’t just take this wiki site's word for it. Get out there, sort through things, and make your own conclusions.