Is Wikipedia really so unreliable?

humbert

Because anybody can edit it it's susceptible to egregious errors, more so than established encyclopaedias, but because it's reviewed by such a huge audience it's very reliable in general.

I'm too lazy to find a link but I seem to remember it coming up trumps against Britannica on accuracy.

orestes

humbert wrote: »

I'm too lazy to find a link but I seem to remember it coming up trumps against Britannica on accuracy.

I've actually got a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica. According to them there's still two Germanys.

humbert

orestes wrote: »

I've actually got a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica. According to them there's still two Germanys.

Haha, I think there's a set of a similar vintage in the parent's house.

Queen-Mise

Madam_X wrote: »

Thought the moderation would be quicker than that?

It isn't 'moderated' the way here would be for example. Wikipedia is a community encyclopedia.
Seemingly it is most accurate in places where, white nerdy males have the most interest:rolleyes:

Wikipedia is generally fairly accurate. I see the odd thing that is dodgy but usually pretty ok. As long as you don't refer to it in 3rd level work.

Sisko wrote: »

University's hate it.

Research traditionally was always an important part of things but these days its so easy, a lot of the work is already done and a quick Google gets you the results it took them to get after hours/days/weeks back when they were all in University.

University's don't like it, not because of the research aspect, but because it is not peer reviewed. It isn't the web part that is the problem. Things can be published quite erroneously on Wikipedia as it is entirely reliant on another web user to see it, to review and update - they are no editors/publishers etc.




Another anecdote on Wikipedia the pages on Palestine and Israel have been completely locked down. It is not longer possible for community members to edit those pages.
When they were open, a pro-Palestine person would edit to show Israel as the devil nation. The following day a pro-Israel person would edit to show all Palestinians as being devil people.:D [I mean devil in their bias]
The pages on both now are entirely factual with as little bias as possible.

Capt'n Midnight

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/3D_glasses

Oranage2

Well you dont really rely on Wiki for anything so that answers the answer.

Does it really matter if Pat Kenny was or wasnt the first man to the North Pole?

A Primal Nut

I like the site and tends to be incredibly accurate...more than I'd expect and I'm often surprised by how the articles aren't as biased as you'd expect user generated content to be.

As for using it for university thesis and so on; obviously I wouldn't Wikipedia itself but if you do find useful information on there, check the references to see where the information came from and use that instead. Although if you are going to use a book, make sure you at least looked at the book!

Wacker The Attacker

sky88 wrote: »

got me through 4 years of college so i think its great

Did you get past first year?

Tombi!

People sometimes "patrol" the recent edits page, which lists a bunch of edits made in the last while and will check them out to see if they're correct or not.

It's great if you just want to find things out.
It's not ideal for anything in school if you're using it as a source. It's good for a jumping off point and you might find out more than you would if you just got a few books (since there are so many links to other pages). That's it, though.
I'd never think about taking anything from Wikipedia as fact if it can't be found on other, more reliable* sites.

*I only say other sites are more reliable because Wikipedia is edited by people. Some of the more obscure pages might go days (or months or years) with incorrect information.

osarusan

My friend and Used to play a game called 'six degrees of wikipedia'. The idea is to choose two unconnected things (each choose one so it will be truly random) and then go to the wiki page for one of those things. The game is to see who can get to the other page in the least amount of clicks on wiki pages in between.

So one of us would choose....sunglasses, and the other chose....popcorn. Go to the sunglasses page, look for the linked page most likely to get you to the popcorn page.

Only rules were:

no using the pages of countries or similar geographical/political bodies, because it's just too easy to go to the page for USA, or Europe, and work from there.

no using the 'other links' at the bottom of most pages.




Good times were had.

Jacksquat

I think it's a great site to start learning about anything and I use it all the time. It's true that there are people that like to vandalise pages but I think there are more that want the information to be correct, so they are usually fixed pretty quick.

rubadub

Nimrod 7 wrote: »

Depends on the popularity of the article.

+1, also depends on how likely the people involved in the subject are to correct stuff, and know it, and word it correctly. e.g. the "big bang theory" tv show page might be as popular as "peppa pig", but if I bet the BBT is meticulously scrutinized.

On some technical pages I would have issues but it is sometimes semantics, or not being perfectly clear. Some other subjects are very lacking, but no more lacking than most encyclopedia entries are on the subject, missing stuff you would see discussed in forums in the last 10 years.

Manic Moran

I've found a number of errors in Wiki when involved in my work as a military historian.

There are two other problems.

1) The more related to current events or politics, the less reliable Wiki is. The Israel/Palestine thing is mentioned above, but also other politics as well.
2) Revolutionary or 'newly discovered' things are not given weight if they go against established common knowledge. One will see this outside of Wiki as well (Ask me about my Tank Destroyer doctrine fight one day), but if something gets repeated often enough by published authors, it becomes 'truth' in Wiki. Even if everyone is wrong. The quote from this article is telling.

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Undue-Weight-of-Truth-on/130704/

"I hope you will familiarize yourself with some of Wikipedia's policies, such as verifiability and undue weight. If all historians save one say that the sky was green in 1888, our policies require that we write 'Most historians write that the sky was green, but one says the sky was blue.' ... As individual editors, we're not in the business of weighing claims, just reporting what reliable sources write."