For this week, I decided to take a look at the Wikipedia page for 4chan and consider its content. I chose the 4chan page as members of 4chan have had a history of manipulating online articles and sites that have some content associated with them. As such, I was curious to see the content of their Wikipedia page and see if there were any visible signs of “tampering” by members of the 4chan community. For the most part, the page simply gives a bit of history on the creation of the site and some media stories surrounding it, as well as a description of the culture that surrounds the site and the content that is generated from it.
As far as the page itself, the article is fairly well written and seems pretty fair in regards to giving information about the site. There are numerous references at the bottom, most of which are news stories from organizations that in some form or another mention 4chan and/or their antics. Overall, the content on the Wikipedia page is generally positive towards the site, and there is somewhat little in regards to reproaching portions of the site in terms of the negative aspects of it, like the sordid nature of much of the content posted there and the attitude of many of the members. The page is mostly dedicated to discussing news stories about the page and certain events surrounding it. The most admonishing portion of the page discusses the bomb threats made to a school, but the end result of which was that people shouldn’t take things said on the board seriously. These are however minor objections, and overall the page gives a good idea about the content and culture of 4chan.
The discussion page is mostly editors conversing as to how to make the page more factually accurate, or how to find more sources to support claims made on the page. There is little controversy, and most of the controversy on the page stems from a discussion on possible racism on the board. While the editors were willing to add a longer section on racism should a significant and credible news story be created around it, they believed that there wasn’t enough credible information given to fully justify adding information about alleged racism to the article, given that it was supposed to be encyclopedic.
Overall, the information and content regarding the 4chan Wikipedia page is very controlled and sober. This is counter to many of the site’s antics, but perhaps they try to keep a clean face to those not involved with the site. Or, perhaps, Wikipedia simply moderates this page extremely heavily.