Wikipedia

[Rosebolt]

Hello.

I was wondering what everyone thinks of Wikipedia. From what i've noticed, there seems to be a slight majority saying it's a bad source of information, and that you'd be better off doing your own research. On the other hand, what they (wikipedia) seem to do, is gather information which they deem reliable from other websites, and store it in one easy to acces website. [citation needed]

I'm interested not only in your opinion about the current wikipedia, and to a lesser extend, other wikia projects, but also the idea of gathering information from around the web, storing it in one place, and have everyone with a computer, keyboard, and internet be able to acces and contribute to it. Where are things going wrong? Assuming they (who?) are going wrong.

 

[Ymir]

http://firstmonday.org/article/view/1413/1331

This is from 2006, so I wonder what changed since then. In my opinion, it's not as much of a bad source of information as people make it to be, but at least I use it as a starting point for my researches and take a good look at the sources instead of using the wikipedia article directly. Works well for me

 

[Sci-Fi]

The problem with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit pages all you need is an account. Also many times information is added with no source to prove its validity, that's why you'll see little notes after certain items. There are too many who just add things and expect others to do the work for them. It's not all bad, there is information which people do take the time to research and provide links to the source material.

 

[Badjedidude]

It's fine for most general knowledge and as a place to start serious research, but it won't be accepted as a resource in any academic research.

One of the problems is that it's not exactly subject to peer review or academic moderation -- while anyone can edit or suggest changes, generally speaking the people who do so haven't spent 40-odd years of their lives studying the particular idea/concept that's being edited. Nobody's going to cite wikipedia in their PhD thesis because within a week after publishing, the entry may have changed and then changed again to the point where the source is no longer accessible or even remotely similar to what was there before, and what the PhD candidate is left with is a thesis with empty notations and useless citations. Aside from that, you have things such as edit/flame/reputation wars, biased edits/essays that go unchecked, the problem of truth by consensus, special interest funding or support for the administration of the site...

...and you can see why it might be considered sketchy or at least inconsistent as a source.

Like I said, it's not bad as a primer or a place to start your search for more information. It'd also probably be somewhat acceptable at a high school level, depending on the school or usage.

 

[Rosebolt]

I use it as a starting point for my researches and take a good look at the sources instead of using the wikipedia article directly. Works well for me

I do that sometimes as well, though recently i haven't really used wikipedia at all.

BJD - If i was doing anything academic i sure as hell wouldn't be using wikipedia, that's true. I guess i see it as copying tekst and thinking it's true? I used to be like that, lol.

And Sci-fi, what do you think would be a good way to implement the idea that (for as far as i know) wikipedia tries to pursue? As in, gathering info from all over the web on one website. I've been a contributing member of other wikia projects, and they were often pretty strictly regulated. Trolls and their posts would be taken care of in a matter of minutes. As well as having protection options that moderators could use.

To extend that idea you comment, BJD, while i'm not really sure if having a website with such available knowledge would be any good in terms of using it for academic standards - considering you're supposed to work hard for it - but obviously, websites can still be used by i suppose everyone who has access to such studies.

Also, BJD, do you, as a teacher, get annoyed by a big huge of the website by your students, or is the usage not as big as i am assuming?

 

[Disaffected]

Wikipedia is open to manipulation, I wouldn't trust it as a source if the topic was controversial.

 

[blackdot]

I find it is a great site to go to for finding general info about a topic. Like just today a coworker was talking about the history of some brand of motorbike. He wasn't sure who currently owned it. I pulled it up in wiki and it had the history of which companies have owned that bike.

It's even good for really indepth scientific info. I just wouldn't go to it if I was trying to right a dissertation for your Doctorate degree.

Fun things can happen to wiki articles though. Just Yahoo search "wiki Colbert elephant" if you didn't watch the Colbert Report years ago.

 

[Badjedidude]

Also, BJD, do you, as a teacher, get annoyed by a big huge of the website by your students, or is the usage not as big as i am assuming?

In general, I don't assign anything to high school students that's too in-depth -- like to the point where they're acquiring huge volumes of material for an essay or whatever. I tend to tell them not to use wikipedia as a source, and most of the time I'll simply either assign them a specific source that I've chosen for them or I'll give them a range of options to choose from.

When I taught college-level classes, wikipedia was a definite no-no.

 

[Alma lost her spoon]

If something is sourced from the internet then I figure it MUST be true.

 

[kamya]

Yup. Another problem with everyone having the ability to edit things is that some people will purposely go in and slightly edit articles to be biased towards whatever their cause is. Political campaigns, PR campaigns, marketing. Lots of that ******** happens on some pages.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Examples_of_Bias_in_Wikipedia (conservapedia is obviously extremely biased as well)

Edit- For laughs, here's the Conservapedia page on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservapedia

 

[Case]

The idea of Wikipedia is a good one, but since the only people who regulate it are the users who submit content, there can be problems. My brother got into a battle of semantics and historical accuracy with someone on a biographical page. My brother would write what he felt was a well-crafted paragraph, and his nemesis would correct it, adding his own interpretation. My brother finally gave up since it was causing him too much distress and he wasn't getting paid for it. If this were his job, he would have fought until the end of time, but he stopped out of deference to his well-being.

I use Wikipedia, as others have said, as a starting point, as it is frequently incorrect.

 

[TheRealCallie]

I don't particularly like Wiki. The fact that anyone can edit the articles is horrible. One of the first articles I read on Wiki was about hamburgers.....along the lines of them being created during one of the world wars, soldiers were starving in Hamburg, Germany and well, you can pick up the rest. Ketchup was also a very interesting read.

What I find comical is that everyone sees that list of references and just assumes they are correct and helpful. They aren't always helpful and correct and some of them are very outdated.

That said, I'll use Wiki when I'm in a hurry and don't care what kind of info I get, but for anything important, I do my own research from known reliable sources.

 

[Rosebolt]

Thanks everyone for their responses, i really enjoyed reading and learning from them.