"The Phenomenology of Error"

In “The Phenomenology of Error,” Joseph Williams makes his point that linguistic errors should be more appropriately looked at as social constructs. By this he means that errors should be viewed more or less as an exchange between the writer and the reader. Also, these exchanges made between writer and reader are going to be different case to case due to how the different readers view the writing and what each of them believe to be considered an error or not. Just because one person believes one thing to be an error does not make it fact, and vice versa for someone who does not think there are errors where errors exist. As far as Wikipedia goes I think that it operates the exact way that Williams discusses in his piece, it operates as a social exchange. One author comes in and creates an article and then the authors after that go through and fix what they believe to be errors or add information as they see fit, but the social exchange itself is not the reason for the negative perception that Wikipedia gets. The reason Wikipedia is characterized as inaccurate and error-prone is due to the fact that the authors that create and edit the articles are “average joes” like you and I. People do not believe that the person making their coffee at the café and the cashier at the department store can be credible authors. This is directly related to the 2005 study of Wikipedia that found that it is essentially equal in errors to that of Encyclopedia Britannica. People put a lot of weight on credentials and status when it comes to what sources they are willing to trust.  Encyclopedia Britannica is easily trusted as a source because people see that it was written by professionals and it is a published source. Then on the other end, Wikipedia is not easily trusted because it is essentially written by anyone who feels like writing and it is constantly changing and being revised.