Title: Facebook
 URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

 The article describes the history, development, features and some legal battles of the social networking site. On April 30, 2004, the earliest wiki-article of Facebook is written and has had two hundred contributors since. In the age of social networking sites, the sense of disclosure is becoming distorted; I selected this article to understand its evolution and possible future changing our social landscape.

The article is relatively accurate. I can’t check all the facts, but it seems to check itself, with its transparent development. Its “veracity level” (and this is a subjective scale on my part from 1-10) is an eight. It is so because though it has many contributors, a comprehensive time line of not only Facebook’s foundation, but developments since. Though, the credibility of individual contributors is nil. Who are these people really? The major contributor to the article is a user called Gary King. He has evaluated and contributed a great deal of content not only to this article but to articles relating to video games and cartoons.

Nicole S. Cohen, a PhD student in the Graduate Program in Communication and Culture at York University in Toronto,writes “…Facebook positions itself as leader of interactive, participant-based online media, or Web 2.0, the descriptor for websites based on user-generated content that create value from the sharing of information.”  Her article is detailed and provides quotes from Mark Zuckerman himself. Similarly, the wiki-article also provides quotes, however, the content of the quotes contribute to the article as a entertaining anecdotal accessory, rather than a support in credibility.

The  hyperlinking format allows readers to connect the information to other brands involved and learn about their contributions to Facebook’s different applications. Cohen writes “Once logged in, members spend time—according to Facebook,on average, 20 minutes a day—linking to friends’ profiles, uploading and ‘tagging’ (or labeling) friends in photos, creating and joining groups, posting events, website links, and videos, sending messages, and writing public notes for each other.” In comparison, the wiki-article writes three paragraphs to the same sentiment and also adding that similar features provided by other online media, which are hyperlinked. Some of the hyperlinked brands, indicative of wikipedia’s interlinking knowleges, flickr, livejournal Comet, Xanga, blogger and company. This allows the reader to relate to facebook using other existing technologies and online entities. This feature, which is incorporated into many of its articles, is detrimental to the credibility to this article. Where as generalizations and descriptions can be vague and invite questions, the linking of the reader to articles written by other groups of anonymous, perhaps lacking credentials relevant to the author’s topic, the mechanism could possibly lead to a web of misconceptions and hodge podge information that doesn’t necessarily contribute to understanding.

The depth and flow of argument is vital to the credibility of an article. The wiki-article uses bold headings to separate points of interest. One of these headings reads “Adam Guerbuez” and following this are two lines indicating his mild involvement in Facebook as being one of its spammers. Is this credible? Somewhat. Somewhat all of the points made in the wiki-article is credible in the sense that it links itself to other people. How can an article be credible if all it does is piggy-back of other articles. Little snippets of credible sources combined together into one article does not make that one article more credible than a more focused article. Cohen’s article uses eighteen pages better than wikipedia’s Facebook contributors uses their 9 measly sections. Cohen forms the more credible information using relevance, a coherent point of view, though it is not as updated as much as the wikipedia article, I find that older, more reliable information is much more useful and verified than something that is updated by a group anonymous users with no scholarly affiliations to speak of.

Parting words: Analyzing articles for credibility is sometimes subjective. I think that credibility is a rock. Wikipedia credibility is a sedimentary rock. You’ll find information looks like a rock (credible), could be considered as a rock (credible). It started out as a bunch of little grains of meaningless sand, but hey, you take what you can get and sometimes it works for what you want it to.

References

Cohen, N. (2008, Spring2008). The Valorization of Surveillance: Towards a Political Economy of Facebook. Democratic Communiqué, 22(1), 5-22. Retrieved February 13, 2009, from Communication & Mass Media Complete database.

Facebook. (2009, February 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:03, February 13, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Facebook&oldid=269893490