Web Credibility Assignment

Upon entering the website, I feel that one can immediately create a bias about the page before the upload is even finished. The page visited, "Titanic Disaster: Official Casualty Figures and Commentary," created by Chuck Anesi appears to be complete. The copyright on the page, however, dates back to 1997 which leads me to believe that is has not been updated since then. If it has, the changes have not been recorded on the page itself. The audience of the page would be anyone who is trying to acquire information about the death percentages and ratios from the sinking of the Titanic. As far as the other sources on his site, I feel that his charts and graphs are very outdated, especially considering the page dates back to 1997. That is like the stone ages in the Internet world, practically. Lots of improvements and updates have been created since then. A majority of the external links on his page no longer work. The link that was supposed to send you to a movie trailer for Titanic sends you to a different movie. Another link sends you to a website that just provides additional facts about Titanic. The outside sources he included did not add much to the website, in my opinion, and would not have even if they would have been working properly.

The authority of the website is unclear to me as well. At the bottom of the page, it does give credit to Chuck Anesi, yet even upon visiting his actual homepage, there was still no direct answer regarding his credentials. There is an e-mail you can use to contact him, however, I'm not sure how up-to-date that e-mail may be or if it's even still an active account. The copyright date on his actual homepage is dated to 2008 but that still leaves 3 years between the information and now. The website ends in .com, but the page still seems to be a personal web page/blog that he used to just put "strange information on the web since 1995." Nothing about his credibility, association, credentials, nothing is found. There is a link on the bottom of the page of the Titanic casualty article that sends you back to his homepage, but even when you visit other links on his homepage they are poorly put together, too, and no credibility is given to where he found his information.

The presentation of the site is extremely outdated. The text, charts, graphs, pictures, and content seemed very outdated and plain. The text is extremely tiny and hard to read, too. I don't feel that the site is very professional looking at all, and honestly, if I used a search engine and was brought to this website I would probably press the back arrow in a heartbeat. If I was looking at this website back in 1997, though, my opinion may be different. The site is easy to navigate, for the links that are still working that is. The images and text should probably be updated to get with the current times. He does have his news and editorial information separate, but no advertising seems to have been done on the site.

All in all, I was not impressed with this website. Maybe if I had searched this website back in 1997 my thoughts may be different. Internet and website building has come a long way. The content was informational but, honestly I probably would not consider his credibility, authority, or presentation very good at all. Hopefully I'm not being too harsh but there is much room for improvement of this website or maybe it's just due to the fact that it is outdated.