Wikipedia

[leng]

There was a comment in a daily thread a while ago where someone was completing a research project (presumably for some sort of class) and gave thanks for Wikipedia.

I have my doubts about Wikipedia. It is pretty good for a lot of technical stuff (particularly computing) but as soon as you move into less cut-and-dried areas the quality of the material becomes rather dubious and needs to be treated with serious caution. Many controversial topics manifest a serious bias and lack of balance.

Well, a bunch of wiki (ex?)insiders have started a website devoted to taking the lid off the wikipedia administrative internals. It is here : http://www.wikitruth.info/ and it is worth looking at before accepting wiki as an authoritative source. I've no doubt that these people have their own axes to grind but it squares well with what I've heard from other sources. Just don't look for any references to wikitruth within wikipedia - they get edited out immediately.

[GravenStone]

This was recently pointed out locally in the rather mundane entries of a pair of competing ferry services across Lake Michigan. The entries for the recently started (3-4 years old) "high speed" service were regularly being bragged up by references, which were in turn found to be associated with the operators of the service - hardly the height of objective opinion.

Unfortunately, as more and more research is compiled online, it can become difficult to know quite where the truth ends, and marketing on behalf of the host/compiler begins. As in all things, skeptical thinking is your friend.

[Asharad]

I agree totally. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16)

[RJO]

I've never understood how anyone could cite wikipedia in any sort of research. It's just way too unmoderated and I've seen so much misinformation on there that I think if I was a proff I'd probably hand you your paper back and tell you to do it again sans wikipedia

[leng]

I agree totally. (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16)
Love it

[Lycos]

Very good Ash! I love that one.

Yes, I have to agree. It's like the X-Files TV show. Wikipedia has almost enough information to make it's self credible. However, due to the editing that can take place, it's no better than heresay. There was a NPR report once about a guy who is still alive and the wikipedia said that he was a master spy, etc. It was a complete fabrication by a guy in his office, as a joke. Even the CEO of wikipedia was wondering why people were taking the information so seriously. :lowlol:

[Kiir]

They did a study, that I am too lazy to find, that showed that Wiki and Encyclopedia Britianica had about the same number of errors in their entries, so Wiki was no worse then using an Encyclopedia. I still won't use it for a major research paper, but then again I won't use an Encyclopedia either.

Found the article after all here it is (http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html).

[leng]

They did a study, that I am too lazy to find, that showed that Wiki and Encyclopedia Britianica had about the same number of errors in their entries, so Wiki was no worse then using an Encyclopedia. I still won't use it for a major research paper, but then again I won't use an Encyclopedia either.

Found the article after all here it is (http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html).
I wondered if this would pop up. You need to read the Britannica comments and take it in context. Basically, the Nature survey was very bad science. Some of the Britannica articles reviewed came from the children's version, some were only introductions and were then criticised for omissions, one article was a mash up from multiple Britannica articles stitched together with crap from a Nature hack.

Unfortunately, it appears that although Nature may do a good job of publishing other people's research, they really don't do good research of their own.

Also, all the articles selected were fairly technical. Wiki material tends to get markedly worse in less explicit fields.

[Sylvene]

What ever happened to the Encyclopedia Americana? We had a set when I was a kid. It was bound in red... as opposed to the blue Britannica.

Okay... I had to look that up. It's under Grolier now.

[DirkDarkBlade]

We had the White (tanish) coloured World Book encyclopedia set when I was little.

[Aananla]

My encyclopedias were all conveniently stored at the library. Saves shelf space. ;)

[Greebo]

Wow, the wikitruth ppl have got an axe to grind. Interesting reading...

[EricStratton]

I remember the first set of encyclopedias of my parents' that I used. So old they didn't even have the world "computer" in it.

[Erudite]

I wondered if this would pop up. You need to read the Britannica comments and take it in context.

It doesn't sound like you've read Nature's rebuttal (http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/eb_advert_response_final.pdf) to Britannica's objections.

Also, all the articles selected were fairly technical. Wiki material tends to get markedly worse in less explicit fields.

List here. (http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/multimedia/438900a_m1.html) A lot of technical stuff, yes, but there seems to be quite a few softer topics there as well.

/em shrugs

[leng]

It doesn't sound like you've read Nature's rebuttal (http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/eb_advert_response_final.pdf) to Britannica's objections.

Yeah, I've read the buttal, the rebuttul, the defense of the rebuttal and the re-rebuttal. Plus a lot of other stuff - one of the science mags in this country did its own analysis of the dispute and more or less came down on the side of Britannia - basically said that the selection process was unfair (eg you cannot criticise a summary for incompleteness) and that there was no grading of the errors (allocating work to entirely the wrong scientist is not a minor issue).

This was not intended to say that all of wikipedia is rubbish/wrong. It was simply to point out that it is in no way an authoritative reference and should be treated with extreme caution. I've had wiki references thrown in my face before which were just plain nonsense, but it can take quite a while to demonstrate that at times and unfortunately wiki is becoming the reference source of choice amongst many.