Wikipedia - truth or rubbish?.
Discussion
bga said:
I've found Wiki to be OK, but have also corrected a fair amount of poor information in my particular area of expertise.
and there you have a good argument for why it isn't NECESSARILY such a bad reference. Peer review - it works for open source software, so why not open source encyclopedia? As with any information source, it should be cross referenced with other sources for validity, and you wouldn't cite a Wiki as the ultimate reference on anything, but as a quick "how the world works" guide its not too bad.
2000_celica said:
littlegreenfairy said:
Jon C said:
littlegreenfairy said:
I owe my degree to Wiki.
you finished already, LGF?
I bet you didnt cite it though?
I should have said I owe the bits of my degree that I've got, to wiki!
And in essays I have referenced it!!
A mate of mine (at uni.) referenced it in an assessed essay, lost marks and told in no uncertain terms 'never' to quote from Wiki in an academic essay.
i tell the kiddies not to reference it .
I'd say that academics should enforce the idea that the use of Wiki is a bad idea. If you are in academia, it's important not to loose the power of independent research. If for whatever other reason, you want a phase diagram for steel, what's wrong with Wiki?
Once you've drawn a few other ideas together, the power of wiki to extend your thinking in the right direction, and in virtually no time at all is immense. Why should an encyclopedia that you might pay for be any better? Are the experts going to be writing encyclopedias, or are they going to be using their knowledge. I think it's the latter, but they may have time to contribute too.
BTW My middle name is Vanilla!
Once you've drawn a few other ideas together, the power of wiki to extend your thinking in the right direction, and in virtually no time at all is immense. Why should an encyclopedia that you might pay for be any better? Are the experts going to be writing encyclopedias, or are they going to be using their knowledge. I think it's the latter, but they may have time to contribute too.
BTW My middle name is Vanilla!
Edited by dilbert on Monday 8th January 23:02
I've used it plenty of time to refresh half-remembered bits and pieces of history, biology and physics. I haven't spotted a single major howler. Who is going to bother to post twaddle on topics like the difference between eukaryote and a prokaryote? Life is too short. If you look at disputed topics, like the Israeli Palestinian conflict, then not only does Wikipedia have "debatable material", you can look at the edit notes and see the debate itself between the various contributors and the moderation of the editors. If anything, that is rather better than picking up a standard text where you are hostage to the author's prejudices without comment from dissenting voices. When you do come across crappy articles, you invariably see a message saying "this stuff is crappy" or words to that effect. As with any source, keep your bullshit detector switched on, but beyond that Wikipedia seems pretty reliable to me.
stovey said:
I don't find it that accurate.
The pistonheads entry had a bit about me taking it up the arse for money, which is just a lie.
I was going to change that to say you're available for free, but the page got deleted before I could find a verifiable source. The pistonheads entry had a bit about me taking it up the arse for money, which is just a lie.
I think Wikipedia could be a lot better, it has great potential but it suffers from Popular Website Syndrome. Think of a website as an island, then imagine troglodytes get washed up on the shore by default, and set up little colonies where they can club passing wildlife and try to mate with it.
Wikipedia should at the very least require a user account for you to be allowed to edit, which other Wikis do to great effect. As for quoting Wikipedia as source text, a better idea might be using the quoted sources for the article you're using as research, rather than the article itself.
A very good (and very funny) take on Wikipedia can be found at www.wikitruth.info . I particularly like their tagline - "The Truth Was There Three Revisions Ago".
Edited by D-Angle on Monday 8th January 23:29
stovey said:
I don't find it that accurate.
The pistonheads entry had a bit about me taking it up the arse for money, which is just a lie.
The pistonheads entry had a bit about me taking it up the arse for money, which is just a lie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pistonhe
Looks like it`s been edited.
dilbert said:
I'd say that academics should enforce the idea that the use of Wiki is a bad idea. If you are in academia, it's important not to loose the power of independent research. If for whatever other reason, you want a phase diagram for steel, what's wrong with Wiki?
Once you've drawn a few other ideas together, the power of wiki to extend your thinking in the right direction, and in virtually no time at all is immense. Why should an encyclopedia that you might pay for be any better? Are the experts going to be writing encyclopedias, or are they going to be using their knowledge. I think it's the latter, but they may have time to contribute too.
BTW My middle name is Vanilla!
Once you've drawn a few other ideas together, the power of wiki to extend your thinking in the right direction, and in virtually no time at all is immense. Why should an encyclopedia that you might pay for be any better? Are the experts going to be writing encyclopedias, or are they going to be using their knowledge. I think it's the latter, but they may have time to contribute too.
BTW My middle name is Vanilla!
Edited by dilbert on Monday 8th January 23:02
What's that "Ledeburite" in that diagram? That's the area where Martensite is.
FunkyNige said:
tinman0 said:
I'm very skeptical about people who start talking about how inaccurate Wikipedia is. Until Encyclopaedia Britannica said "Yeah, but Wiki is wrong and we're right" people have started to question Wiki more widely.
Lets just say that I'm sure it has nothing to do with Britannica's sales being destroyed.Ahem
Nature did a comparison on Wikipedia vs Britannica, Wikipedia came off rather badly in spite of blatent help for Wiki (giving a summary from Brittanica then giving an error as in wasn't concise enough, etc.). The best description I've heard of Wikipedia was on here a few days ago - 'The online bloke down the pub'.
I think any reference source that I can change is a bad thing.
That article you quote was interesting, but lets face it, Wiki is 5 years old, had 162 errors compared to Britannica's 120 odd which has been going how many years?
I don't think wiki will be "perfect" for a long time, but you have to admit that the project has come a long way in a very short space of time.
americancrx said:
dilbert said:
I'd say that academics should enforce the idea that the use of Wiki is a bad idea. If you are in academia, it's important not to loose the power of independent research. If for whatever other reason, you want a phase diagram for steel, what's wrong with Wiki?
Once you've drawn a few other ideas together, the power of wiki to extend your thinking in the right direction, and in virtually no time at all is immense. Why should an encyclopedia that you might pay for be any better? Are the experts going to be writing encyclopedias, or are they going to be using their knowledge. I think it's the latter, but they may have time to contribute too.
BTW My middle name is Vanilla!
Once you've drawn a few other ideas together, the power of wiki to extend your thinking in the right direction, and in virtually no time at all is immense. Why should an encyclopedia that you might pay for be any better? Are the experts going to be writing encyclopedias, or are they going to be using their knowledge. I think it's the latter, but they may have time to contribute too.
BTW My middle name is Vanilla!
Edited by dilbert on Monday 8th January 23:02
What's that "Ledeburite" in that diagram? That's the area where Martensite is.
Perhaps you need to do a bit more Wiki!!!
ATG said:
I haven't spotted a single major howler. Who is going to bother to post twaddle on topics like the difference between eukaryote and a prokaryote? Life is too short.
I haven't spotted much twaddle in the technical stuff. I have spotted a bit. There's always going to be someone with a pet looney theory on something who writes or edits an article in accordance with that point of view. More common is simple lack of knowledge on the topic being written about. There's a couple of articles I've rewritten almost completely because the original writer simply didn't understand what they were writing about.
Pigeon said:
ATG said:
I haven't spotted a single major howler. Who is going to bother to post twaddle on topics like the difference between eukaryote and a prokaryote? Life is too short.
I haven't spotted much twaddle in the technical stuff. I have spotted a bit. There's always going to be someone with a pet looney theory on something who writes or edits an article in accordance with that point of view. More common is simple lack of knowledge on the topic being written about. There's a couple of articles I've rewritten almost completely because the original writer simply didn't understand what they were writing about.
The strange thing is that I never wiki things I actually know about. I just did, and it's all stifled and blank.
Perhaps it's time to make a contribution!
Let me know if you find the dodgey science I added.
tinman0 said:
FunkyNige said:
tinman0 said:
I'm very skeptical about people who start talking about how inaccurate Wikipedia is. Until Encyclopaedia Britannica said "Yeah, but Wiki is wrong and we're right" people have started to question Wiki more widely.
Lets just say that I'm sure it has nothing to do with Britannica's sales being destroyed.Ahem
Nature did a comparison on Wikipedia vs Britannica, Wikipedia came off rather badly in spite of blatent help for Wiki (giving a summary from Brittanica then giving an error as in wasn't concise enough, etc.). The best description I've heard of Wikipedia was on here a few days ago - 'The online bloke down the pub'.
I think any reference source that I can change is a bad thing.
That article you quote was interesting, but lets face it, Wiki is 5 years old, had 162 errors compared to Britannica's 120 odd which has been going how many years?
I don't think wiki will be "perfect" for a long time, but you have to admit that the project has come a long way in a very short space of time.
You really think Britannica has only had 120 errors since the 18th century?!!
from wiki said:
The journal Nature reported on December 14, 2005 that of the 42 science articles it reviewed, there were 162 mistakes in Wikipedia versus 123 for Britannica, with the errors in Britannica being oriented towards omissions rather than factual errors.
This the bit you mean.
Britannica is only a small library...120,000 articles
Wikipedia is a little bit bigger....1,500,000 articles....thats just the englsih ones.
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