How good is wikipedia really?

[Aeroracer]

since i have been on the internet i have always relied on wikipedia.if i didnt know something or was unsure of something i would goto wikipedia..

whatever it says i take as law.

if its not on wiki then its probally b**** and isnt true.


but as of late, checking out many things i am beginning to think wiki is more like a tool where people write crap to make something look bad and push the view point be it right or wrong across.

its kind of like where one expert will in a round about way discredit another expert knowing that people will tend to belive it must be tru if its on wiki.


anyway im pretty wet behind the ears and i know there are some wise brians on this forum..maybe they could say what there views are on wiki as a source of reliable impartial information..:nod

[IDReaper]

I wouldn't take everything on wikipedia to be true, as you have stated it is a public encyclopedia that can be edited and maintained by users. Some things may be credible but you have to watch out for discrepancy. I try to find other sources for any academic work.

[SaturnReturn]

It's only as reliable as the brain of the person reading it.

In theory it should be pretty reliable. I'm not sure exactly what the process is, but even if you assume anyone can write whatever they like on it, then at the same time there are probably many many more people essentially proof-reading it. So anything of interest is likely to be identified reasonably easily. People can publish books on whatever they want too, but without nearly as much scrutiny.
You have to still check other sources. Maybe think of each article as a summary of the subject and use it as a source of sources of information to find out more. I definitely never only take wikipedia's word for something if it's more than for my own general interest.

I have been seeing more articles on there recently though, which seem to be written from heavily biased viewpoints. They can be factually correct and still try and push a particular agenda on the reader. Maybe I'm just more wary of spin than I was when I first started using it.

So I guess beware of spin and check your sources and it's a fine place to learn a lot about the world very quickly.



whatever it says i take as law.

Even the law gets things wrong.

[yeldar2097]

Spin? Biased viewpoints? I find it hard to recognise spin, even when I spend ages looking for it. Simpleton me ^_^
One thing I'd say is that is depends MASSIVELY on what you're searching for (with regards spin, accuracy etc), but that's pretty obvs if you think about it :nod

Defs true what you say about the proof-readers Sat: Mate of mine once made a very subtle (very amusing and vaguely insulting) change to the Etonian Wiki...got changed back within about 10 mins.

Bloody mods :P

[SaturnReturn]

It's a good thing I'm not here because I decided to get an early night and therefore didn't just read that. ;)

EDIT: A band at my uni made up a new musical genre and posted an article on wikipedia about it, with themselves as pioneers. I'll see if I can remember what it was called tomorrow and look it up.

[Aeroracer]

I have been seeing more articles on there recently though, which seem to be written from heavily biased viewpoints. They can be factually correct and still try and push a particular agenda on the reader. Maybe I'm just more wary of spin than I was when I first started using it.


Even the law gets things wrong.

exactly what i think..almost for example like you would get teslar write his theory on it and edison would trash it and make him out politley as unfounded and untested and everyone who read it who knew no different, could assume teslar was a rubbish scientist ,yet there both the same standard....well imo teslar was light years ahead but got walked all over and wasnt recognized..but that just my opinion when i did a paper on him at school.

as for the law SR..when did it ever get anything right well in the uk anyway.its broken and corrupt, out of date.disproportionate in every sense..
only good thing about the law is breaking it.

[Dan Locke]

CollegeHumor's take on the subject (slightly NSFW) (http://collegehumor.com/video:1830262)

[Aeroracer]

hahahahaha.everyone must watch the above link its really funny:nod

[Lance]

Wikipædia is pretty damned good. No information source is utterly reliable. I have seen very few Wikipædia pages where someone tries to trash the page or discredit a page author. In the past couple of years, I've seen no instances of that, but of course I may not be looking at the same categories of articles as other people.

[SaturnReturn]

Well the Wikipædia entry on is Wikipædia (http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikip%C3%A6dia) is hilarious, as is the Wikipædia Main Page (http://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page). :D

[Lance]

I think I saw a spelling mistake on the Scottish Wikipedia entry page. In the GÃ*idhlig na h-Alba leid.

[Frances_Penfold]

I'm with Lance on this one.

I teach in the sciences at a university. My experience is that many academics look down their noses at Wikipedia-- especially faculty in the humanities. Personally, I think as a "first pass" for learning the basics on a topic, Wikipedia is a pretty good source of information. Not perfect, of course, but frankly most freshman/sophomore level textbooks aren't either, either because of bias or confusing explanations.

So I *encourage* my students to use Wikipedia as a learning tool-- but also not to completely trust it, and never, ever "cite" it as a real reference in a paper or manuscript.

I don't doubt that Wikipedia and other online sources are more problematic in some disciplines than in others. There are probably more subtle (and sinister) ways to introduce bias for a topic in history, political science, psychology, religious studies or english literature than in chemistry, physics or environmental science.

Just my $0.02 :)

[blackwiggle]

Wikipedia is pretty good,I watch out for the references, when given, and check those if I find the description of any particular topic somewhat doubtful or vague.

It depends on what subject you are looking at,if it's art,well take opinions with a grain of salt,as it tends to be a basically a purely subjective point of view.

There is a pseudo amount of peer review within Wikipedia ,as most topics have more than one expert in any particular field help contribute to the whole.

I've run across a few posts in electronics that seem to be from somebody that is in the process of attaining a PhD,there is no true proof of concept as such,and references given don't really help as you are basically reading a unproven proposed idea/concept.

On the whole Wikipedia is a wonderful contribution to humanity.
Much as H.G.Wells envisioned it.

[Lance]

The very large number of disparate people who contribute ensures that many things which would remain obscure and unknown, pretty much impractically time consuming to find even on the web, much less in a library, are readily available and quickly found in a wiki page. It's great.

As an example of this: Yesterday I was studying old jet aircraft with the object of finding the most efficient configuration for air intake for an engine and subsonic solo cruiser plane I was designing in my head, and I ran across the Avro 707 research craft that were used to test the wing design for the Avro Vulcan bomber. I'd never even heard of those planes. They made me rethink my design entirely. In the course of a few hours browsing Wikipædia, I found something that might have taken months of library research, including travel that I don't have transportation for and lots of book ordering through inter-library borrowing. In this case, the sources would probably be entirely in the UK., which might have been an insurmountable problem. Wiki is not yet as good as it could be, but it is gradually approaching the ideal of an all-inclusive world database.

[Rapier Racer]

That Scottish page is a lot of garbled nonsense who talks like that? I guess I live to close to the English border because the people round here have incredibly watered down accents, which becomes very noticeable the further north you go.

It makes me cringe when I hear someone talking with the heavy accent it sounds rediculous lol :paperbag

[Dan Locke]

Filthy racist. :g

[mdhay]

That Scottish page is a lot of garbled nonsense who talks like that?

I try to, makes my english lessons more entertaining. :P