Reflections #3 - Matter of trust

This week on Facebook everyone has been passing around the “definition” of their name that they found on Urbandictionary.com. That exercise seems to fit well with this week’s reflection. The definitions are very obviously input by those who bear that name or those with a grudge against someone by that name.

I knew that it was pretty easy to put anything that you wanted out on the Web. As someone who works with design, I had often used that as a simple clue when I looked at the ‘legitimacy’ of a Web site, but this week’s exercises proved that’s not a valid test. If someone has a lot of time, a lot of talent, and just the funds needed to buy a domain name, he or she can build a site that looks like a reliable source.

I usually stick with well-known sources for any of my Web searches, looking within library sites and trying to find lots of sources for comparison. More than anything else, I use the Internet for entertainment. I do spend time reading about media trends and advertising ideas, and I use sites for teaching tools that I use in my class. Most of the sites I use though are recommended by people that I trust and I never use just one source. Today’s students are using searches in their schoolwork in elementary school, but I had to tell my daughter that Wikpedia wasn’t the only source she should use for research even if it was the only one her teacher recommended.

For a critical look, I took a site that I’ve used a lot in the past. Mousesavers.com is a site that I’ve used to prep for our last two family vacations to Disney World. It’s a great site for trip planning, money saving ideas, and reviews of places to stay. It even keeps up-to-date on attractions that are closed for repair. It was one of the first sites that came up in Internet search for Disney discounts and many of the other sites I visited referred to MouseSavers.com as a good research source. The history shows the site growing from 8 Pages in 2001 to 224 pages in 2005, and shows how often the site is updated throughout each year. It is a personal Web site, but Mary Waring, the site author tells you that up front.

As for the de.li.cious, I’m not sure yet how helpful it will be. I have my home computer, but the kids take that over most of the time. I have both a PC and Mac for work, but I use my Mac laptop 80 percent of the time and take it home most nights. I use it most as the computer that I love so most of my bookmarks are on that machine, so it may take a while to see if there’s a benefit for using the outside source for bookmarking my own favorites. I think the networking is more likely to be useful but I haven’t been able to play with it much as yet.