Firstly, before I speak about the content of the article on my Wikipedia article of choice, I would like to talk about why I consider Wikipedia further evidence of the existence of "Internet Altruism". The fact that Wikipedia has become such a prolific and valuable source of information, especially as an open-source resource is really remarkable. Of course vandalism occurs, but once again, people interested in helping the community go out of their way to correct these issues. In short, Wikipedia makes a wonderful case for the greater good of people using the Internet.
The article I chose to examine was "Internet Activism". The article covers a wide variety of different approaches and understands of how activism occurs online. I'm in particular agreement about Sandor Vegh's three categories: Awareness/Advocacy, Organization/Mobilization and Action/Reaction. I feel that these categories provide a very good generalized description of the kinds of Internet activism that people are exposed to. I also found the section about criticisms of Internet activism, extremely important. The critiques raised address the phenomena known as "Slaktivism" and the difficulties of online actions being realized into the offline world. I think all of these points are extremely valid and provide a greater font of information for me to springboard off of. I would highly suggest perusing this article, if you have any interest in activist causes in an online context. The article is well constructed and provides good content. I intend to use sources cited in this article if possible, as I think they are a good foundation to the goals I’m working towards.
If I had to develop anything further in the article, I would most likely just try to further the information available on the subject. Thankfully, this situation can easily be remedied by following the suggested links and sources for the article itself.
Interestingly enough, the talk page is extremely short, with few comments posted. The first few posts are short and bring up individual topics, for which the idea of Internet Activism is pertinent. However, the most recent additions to the Talk page struck me.
"There has been a battle in cyberspace over the years to clear out some of the fascist sites and to stop people from using the internet to promote race hatred...This has been perceived and presented as an attack on freedom of speech but the contrary argument has been that members of racial minorities have a right to live their lives without fear and intimidation...How one can criticize some activity just "because poor people, minorities and elderly citizens either lack access or are inexperienced in the new technologies"?"
I think this post addresses some very real issues concerning the relationship between the world of the Internet and the freedoms afforded to people. Is it unrealistic to expect the American legal freedoms to apply to all Internet users? Does online activism short-change people who are not Internet/computer savvy? Is there a way to incorporate these voices effectively? I think these points are extremely important to keep in mind when attempting to provide a critical overview on creating change. I think being able to address these concerns and issues will lend themselves to fleshing out my ideas, as well a providing people with content to challenge.
On a closing note: your high school teacher was being hypercritical. Wikipedia makes a great source, as long as you know how to use it.