The Internet Is a Democratic Place

The Internet is a democratic place that allows anyone without credentials to present information to the public without any revision of their data/information. This creates a much greater change of encountering false or erroneous data because people can post their ideas, copy or modify other people’s ideas to promote theirs. In order to use information from the web to conduct research, it becomes the reader’s job to analyze, evaluate, and interpret the data and the credentials of the author/s that are sharing the information on the Web. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate/critique the quality and trustworthiness of Web-based pseudo-archaeological topic. For this purpose I have selected webpage titled Aliens Built the Pyramids (http://www.outerworlds.com/likeness/aliens/aliens.html). In order to analyze the quality and trustworthiness of this website I will fallow a five step process outlines by the library at the University of California-Berkley, from which I will select three steps and used them to critique the webpage. The three main topics I will focus on are: First, what can be determined about the site by its URL and perimeter information, second, the quality of information presented on the webpage, and lastly, I will summarize and interpret the webpage. By completing these steps to examine the quality of the website I expect to learn how to properly identify and distinguish the information presented on the Internet for research based purposes.

The webpage I selected to evaluate and critique is Aliens Built the Pyramids (http://www.outerworlds.com/likeness/aliens/aliens.html), based on the webpage URL interpretations can be established about its credibility. There are a number of different domains that are associated with websites, this one’s is .com this indicates that the domain where this webpage is located is commercial, rather than educational, nonprofit, or government based. Hence, the page Alien Built the Pyramids does seem to have the appropriate domain mane for the content, due to its pseudo-archaeological content it’s not being posted on educational or government sites that usually have better suited material for research. The URL also indicates the publisher of the website, the publisher is the agency or person operating the server on which the webpage is located. Aliens Build the Pyramids webpage is published on outerworlds.com, this seems like an appropriate publisher name that would have information on such phenomenon’s as aliens. But its actually a website dedicated to a virtual 3D chat game in which members are part of an virtual world and where they can create anything they imagine and be whoever they want. The site also sells servers to provide webhosting.

The perimeter information or links on the actual webpage are non-existing, there’s no ancillary information such as “Background” or “About Us” sections that are usually located on websites to provide background information about