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User generated content...
A wonderful thing. A genius idea.
In theory.
UGC came around in order to attempt to tap into that pool of undiscovered genius. An attempt in trying to find the best of the best and use them for free. A great way to make money. I mean, letting people that like something tell everyone the way it is. Wikipedia for example. Everyone's used it. Everyone runs into it when you drop a search term in your Google homepage. Wikipedia was one of the first. It's a good thing when you get into those deep science theories, because it usually is donated to by people that know what they are talking about. It's amazing.

Sure it is...
Until you run into one of those articles... One that was just edited. Fun stuff that is. It's entertaining to see every now and then, but if there are those people that ruin an entire page just for fun, then there will no doubt be people that mess it up a tiny bit. "Misconstrue" one tiny fact. Ruin the basis of your research paper.
What's that saying nowadays? You know... when the teachers of yours start talking about your bibliographies. The common stuff... no Cliff's notes, no Sparknotes... it'll make your life miserable. Then they start talking about that essay you're writing. Halfway through, they stop, "Oh yeah, and DON'T use Wikipedia. It can be edited by aaaanyone."
You get that from all your teachers nowadays. It would take too much work to monitor all the user generated content of a website.
UGC is a good thing, if and only if, it isn't used for something important. An encyclopedia of UGC, not good at all. Now, a gaming sight like Game-FAQs, wonderful. UGC can go a long way. None of that stuff is done by paid officials. Still generates a lot of traffic though. Good stuff.
UGC in a nutshell, don't use it if someone's gonna grade it.

Learn more about this author, Zaid Daghestani.
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