Wikipedia - Do you trust it?

Stinicker

Anyone think that is a definite liberal left wing bias on Wikipedia, everything on it seems to have an agenda, I occasionally may look it up for information but I can never really trust anything I see or read on it.

TheyKnowMyIP

I trust no article unless it cites original sources.

**Timbuk2**

I trust it quite a bit actually - it's important that you read up on citations and sources, and see where the information is coming from. I look up a lot of mathematical things on wikipedia to help with my course, and find it excellent in that regard - some things are explained and proved very well on it.

But as always, be wary of sources. If there is a strange statement made without citation, then take it with a pinch of salt.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Why would you need wikipedia when we have class papers like The Daily Mail and The Sun? :P

Standman

Very confusing poll as the question in the heading is different to the one on the poll.

joshrogan

It's near impossible to have non-biased public access databases of knowledge but for the most part Wikipedia is a brilliant resource/reference IMO.

Sgt. Bilko 09

i am in uni and i have been told by all my lecturers that wikipedia is like reading someone elses opinion. and they entered information onto a website, two days later it was logged on wiki...after seen and witness false information been put on that site dont think its trust worthy

TheyKnowMyIP

I am happy the Xfactor reference was made:)

Moron TV imo. It's like something from Idiocracy.

"Ouch, my balls":D

TheyKnowMyIP

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

i am in uni and i have been told by all my lecturers that wikipedia is like reading someone elses opinion. and they entered information onto a website, two days later it was logged on wiki...after seen and witness false information been put on that site dont think its trust worthy

Academics hate it because people generally plagiarise the **** out of it. That is not enough to make it a bad source, it's a good gateway to other more reputable sources.

Outside the narrow scope of Academia, it's generally considered OK.

orourkeda

Its useful as a starting point. Not entirely trustworthy

FTGFOP

It's common knowledge that reality has a left-wing bias.

Sgt. Bilko 09

TheyKnowMyIP wrote: »

Academics hate it because people generally plagiarise the **** out of it. That is not enough to make it a bad source, it's a good gateway to other more reputable sources.

Outside the narrow scope of Academia, it's generally considered OK.

but wikipedia plegerise so it sort of defeating the purpose also the information i seen logged on this particular website was so bogus they still havent reconigsed it yet. I dont plegerise as i dont need too but i dont think its helpful at all after witnessing first hand the information sited by them

ArmaniJeanss

Comically bad poll options which clash with thread title, its such a simple thing to get right that its staggering how many people are useless at it.

*************

I'd trust wiki but in general I'd be using it for finding out who played 2nd drug dealer from the left in an episode of The Wire or whether theres a train from Budapest airport into the city.

For anything where a left/right wing agenda is possible, say something like the War in Iraq or climate change or peak oil, then I'd always look for something more specialist.

Insect Overlord

A lot of articles/pages on Wikipedia are written with an agenda, but that's not to say that there is one particular (sinister) agenda permeating the whole site.

A funny one is the info given on Irish translations of other pages, especially for days of the year. The English page for today's date: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_October
The Irish page for today's date: http://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Deireadh_F%C3%B3mhair

A combination of lazy translating and political/religious bias on the author's behalf!

TheyKnowMyIP

Sgt. Bilko 09 wrote: »

but wikipedia plegerise so it sort of defeating the purpose also the information i seen logged on this particular website was so bogus they still havent reconigsed it yet. I dont plegerise as i dont need too but i dont think its helpful at all after witnessing first hand the information sited by them

In that case, they are at fault.

JONJO THE MISER

orourkeda wrote: »

Its useful as a starting point. Not entirely trustworthy

:eek:

Sgt. Bilko 09

TheyKnowMyIP wrote: »

In that case, they are at fault.

they're are better website to research from but personally i would use wiki after all the founder is a wanted felon ha

Wetai

It depends on the subject. If it's more fact/research based (science/medicine) - i'd trust it (especially with citations). But with some stuff you can't trust all of the information, esp. stuff that'd be open to opinions (politics-related, religions, etc) (kinda like how on Urban Dictionary if you search a name, you'll get stuff like "is a wonderful, caring, epic person", etc)

bluto63

If Wikipedia is wrong, so is my entire knowledge of the world.

overshoot

i trust it for general unimportant crap and finding me sources for college stuff.

one of the lads put updated a bit of information on a person once and the lecturer said it a few months later:D. funny as hell class, no references backing it up and he still used it!

Niles

I wouldn't trust it without question but for getting a general overview of a topic it's not the worst... it can be edited by anyone so misinformation/bias is going to come with the territory, like many things in life you have to take it with a pinch of salt.

Capt'n Midnight

the poll has an agenda

StaticNoise

Nah, it's actually surprisingly reliable.

4leto

yeah even when it is bullshyte it still knows more then me.

strobe

Stinicker wrote: »

Anyone think that is a definite liberal left wing bias on Wikipedia, everything on it seems to have an agenda, I occasionally may look it up for information but I can never really trust anything I see or read on it.

Examples?

RichieC

Stinicker wrote: »

Anyone think that is a definite liberal left wing bias on Wikipedia, everything on it seems to have an agenda, I occasionally may look it up for information but I can never really trust anything I see or read on it.

Reality has a liberal slant. There's the facts for you. If you don't like reality you can go read ****flies amazing Conservapedia where reality is tailored to your every bias.

Plautus

I was going to say, this is the guy who wants to re-colonise Africa, so his standard for 'liberal bias' is going to be set pretty low.

The Scientician

StaticNoise wrote: »

Nah, it's actually surprisingly reliable.

It is, I think the only "flaw" I consistently see is they'll use little known counter-information to an orthodoxy and give alternate theories more credence than perhaps they should get. But still a lot of entries are well constructed, informative and citation rich. You can't really ask for more.

RichieC

"Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica"

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

More up to date as well.

Azureus

Love wikipedia-wouldnt use it as an actual reference but for finding a base to jump from on a subject its great!

Oranage2

Trust it for what exactly?

I usually use it at a starting point to get basic knowledge then from there I use other websites or books for proper research.

For interesting facts I take it at face value - Does it really matter how accurate it is for trivial things?

Unless you're going on who wants to be a millionaire it doesnt matter what it says as common belief is more powerful than facts.

--Kaiser--

Encyclopedias can be just as inaccurate as Wikipedia. We should all learn to be critical thinkers and take everything we read with a pinch of salt

Another important point to remember is that knowledge changes constantly. E.g. ask an astronomer 20 years ago how many planets there were he'd say 9. Ask one know and they would say 8. You can't say that, at the time of asking, that either were incorrect

ShadowHearth

I use wiki only to check stuff about cars. If I need some info on engine used, difference in models, generations, small background etc.

Its a good place to find some simple A and B stuff, I would go near the political stuff thought.

Seachmall

"Wikipedia's open nature and a lack of proper sources for most of the information makes it unreliable" - Wiki

So Wikipedia isn't reliable, according to Wikipedia anyway. Although doesn't that show it is reliable, which means it isn't reliable...????

--Kaiser--

Seachmall wrote: »

"Wikipedia's open nature and a lack of proper sources for most of the information makes it unreliable" - Wiki

So Wikipedia isn't reliable, according to Wikipedia anyway. Although doesn't that show it is reliable, which means it isn't reliable...????

This sentence is false

StephenHendry

i think its great, ok you can edit stuff but for general info, getting an explanation on things its very good. i do use the links to sites at the bottom of the page as well as a back up

stovelid

Actually I do to a certain extent. Obviously I wouldn't take information from it to use officially but I would trust it to a certain extent for informal information purposes.

I honestly think that the impulse to provide information on a subject that people care about is usually stronger than the impulse to spread willful or malicious disinformation. It's also easy enough to spot stuff that is not referenced or seems like mere opinion.

That said, I'm talking about more 'innocent' informaton' here: sports, science/technology and geography for example, and not potentially loaded information such as information on public figures, historical.current political disputes and so on.

StephenHendry

i remember not so long ago that they were looking for donations to help keep them going. i could spend the day happily going through different random stuff on it

Giruilla

I generally trust it, but its sad that there are often campaigns on controversial topics to promote one side of a story, and constantly delete publication of another side.

marco_polo

Stinicker wrote: »

Anyone think that is a definite liberal left wing bias on Wikipedia, everything on it seems to have an agenda, I occasionally may look it up for information but I can never really trust anything I see or read on it.

This might be more to your taste, although I wouldn't reccomend it for Biology homework .

http://conservapedia.com/Main_Page

Morlar

I don't trust it whatsoever, actually pretty shocked that 77% of people here do.

I recall a scandal there a few years ago where some senior editors were discovered to have been working behind the scenes to have another staunchly pro-zionist editor promoted at the expense of one who was not so pro-zionist.

I think it is very open to abuse from advocacy and lobby groups who have a political agenda.

In particular there have even been classes organised and provided to zionist settlers in wiki-editing techniques.

There are some parts of it where mini wars have broken out, pages edited by a lobby group, are corrected by a passerby, then re-edited at the end of the day. Every single day.

It seems a great idea but anyone with an agenda and a bunch of volunteers can and do sway it regularly, they slant the information either by omission or exaggeration. Selecting sources which are not impartial and totally ignoring those who do not comply. I do not trust it at all. For convenience sake I will use it for reference sometimes but I am always careful when I do.

--Kaiser--

Morlar wrote: »

It seems a great idea but anyone with an agenda and a bunch of volunteers can and do sway it regularly, they slant the information either by omission or exaggeration. Selecting sources which are not impartial and totally ignoring those who do not comply. I do not trust it at all. For convenience sake I will use it for reference sometimes but I am always careful when I do.

As long as you're not looking up a politically divisive subject, you are probably alright. There's nothing new to people swaying certain 'facts' to their viewpoint, vis the following quotes on history:

"history is written by the victors"

Or , to put it even stronger

"history is something that didn't happen, written by someone who wasn't there"

Vicxas

I use it for reference, but i wouldnt use it for any sort of important information

bnt

TheyKnowMyIP wrote: »

I trust no article unless it cites original sources.

That's how it's supposed to work anyway: an encyclopedia, whatever form it takes, is a secondary source, which should cite primary sources for all assertions of fact. Most Wikipedia contributors get this, and if you just insert your own opinion in to an article without any citations, it's liable to get flagged or even deleted in short order.

The OP needs to understand that Wikipedia is written by contributors with no connection to the Wikimedia Foundation. They are not paid for their contributions. They are not screened in any way. So, even if the Wikimedia Foundation had an agenda, how could they enforce it? Or is it simply that tech-savvy people, the ones with the minimal skills required to edit a Wikipedia article, are statistically more likely to be "liberal"?

The other thing is that you need to recognise that some articles are battlefields, and are inevitably going to polarise opinion. Anything involving Israel & Palestine for example. If you go to Wikipedia looking for "truth" in anything highly political, you're wasting your time. The most "truth" you can expect is limited to facts (with citations), not opinions.

So I trust it according to how important the question is. In the back of my mind are more questions, such as "would the most recent editor lie about this?" and "what are the consequences of being wrong?" The other day I looked up the rules of Backgammon before playing the game against a computer. There was no reason for the author of that Wikipedia article to get them wrong, and even if s/he had, someone else would have fixed it. And even if a mistake had slipped through, there would have been no lasting damage.

So, once again we have a false dichotomy; "trust or not", when the reality requires you to take a more nuanced approach. I know some people have trouble with grey areas, and want everything in black-and-white: I'll trust Wikipedia before I trust such people.

I think Stephen Colbert put it very well: "reality has a well-known liberal bias". Me, I'm tired of seeing the word "liberal" used as an insult by people who don't know what it really means.

ejmaztec

I get all my facts from Uncyclopedia, a much more accurate source than Wiki.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ireland

Here's the first paragraph on Ireland:

Ireland, not to be confused with Iraq, is the boggy, green mound located a fair bit west of Japan and is renowned for its rolling drunks, being a former Soviet republic, green hills, 364 days of rainfall each year, unexcused sentimentalism, Luck of the Irish and the turf (ah, the turf). Ireland has been president of the Federation of Nations that hate Britain since 1169. The island of Ireland is split into two parts, Northern Badlands and the Republic of Ireland. Northern Badlands is part of the UK and has been since 1955

sbsquarepants

For the type of crap i'd be looking up, it's fine.
For quantum physhics and the likes, probably not so fine, but then if you know enough to spot the mistakes, you know not to be looking on wikipedia!

Seachmall

sbsquarepants wrote: »

For quantum physhics and the likes, probably not so fine, but then if you know enough to spot the mistakes, you know not to be looking on wikipedia!

I think the hard science topics tend to be some of the most readily sourced articles on Wiki and while the specifics could be inaccurate the general overview of the topic tends to be fairly accurate (and I don't think you should be looking on Wiki for more than a general overview). But of course, as you say, if you're looking on Wiki for information on a hard science you probably wouldn't be able to distinguish between fact and fiction anyway.

I'd say the most inaccurate articles are those on topics which everybody knows a little about and so think they can contribute even if what they know is actually wrong (think sports, music, celebrities etc.)

Niles

ejmaztec wrote: »

I get all my facts from Uncyclopedia, a much more accurate source than Wiki.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Ireland

Here's the first paragraph on Ireland:

Back in college when lecturers and tutors warned us against the mortal sin of using Wikipedia as a source I was often tempted to ask could we use Uncyclopedia... I don't recall being specifically told we couldn't...:rolleyes:

St.Spodo

I'd use it to get a general understanding of a subject. Also, since when was the liberal agenda a bad thing?

MungBean

For general stuff I'd trust it but not for anything important. If I was writing a thesis a wiki article wouldnt exactly be a good source.

Hercule Poirot

I once looked up Miroslav Klose during the 2010 World Cup, under his list of ahievements was "UEFA Champion of being a fanny", I refreshed the page after a minute or two and it had disappeared - probably deleted by a moderator or something - but it shows what rubbish can be there if you are on at the wrong time.