Aren't you the person who couldn't understand why we should study literature? What you describe, is Maslow's first rung of the ladder, in his hierarchy of needs - Basic survival.

 

Why?
What did poor old Roland do to be dead with good reason?
Is he a candidate for a Darwin award?

Enquiring minds wish to know.

JimB

__________________
Experience is directly proportional to the value of the equipment ruined.

 

As an individual who works in a university and grades papers and reviews student work I have never allowed a student to cite wikipedia in their submissions despite their fervent and sometimes vitriolic protests (Good thing you aren't in my class Marks256).

There are two reasons but actually they are related to the same problem.

First, wikipedia is ever changing. Now this is a good thing but brings with it the small problem that information cited say, last week, might not be the same information presented this week. Now this isn't too much of a problem as students must also cite the "date retrieved" (and sometimes the time retrieved) when referencing any internet source. Wikipedia keeps excellent records of past edits and "lost" information can be easily reviewed. Ok so far so good.

Second, now things get murky. Students can, and have, tampered with wikipedia to advance their own views and then give those views an air of "authority" by citing wikipedia as the "source".

Citing one's own edits to wikipedia as authoritative sources of information is akin to saying "i'm right, because i said so."

If a student is given a bad mark for inaccurate information they often come back and say they never made mistakes, it was wikipedia that made the mistake. At which point the grader must give them the mark because its not fair (at least for the honest mistakes) that a student has to lose a mark for the mistakes of their source.

An therein lies the problem, students use wikipedia as a cheating tool. It's not wikipedia that is faulty or untrustworthy, it is the students.

My favourite incident was when a student conjured up a fake war between two countries and cited this war as evidence that one of the political figures in a country was an enemy of a particular religon.

Another interesting incident was when a student clearly did not understand a particular scientific topic but had to write a short essay about it. They went into wikipedia and rewrote an article to fit their understanding and then cited it. Ofcourse this was easy to spot as the theory was scientific rubbish. But when confronted with this the student insisted they could not be penalized because even if it was wrong the student properly cited wikipedia and blamed wikipedia for misleading them. They denied any and all involvement with the tampering. The tampering was easy to prove because in a display of pure criminal genius they used the very same computer to make the edits which they had previously registered with the university's network for a static IP just days before. Wikipedia logs editor's IP addresses to help fight tampering.

So really, its not wikipedia I don't trust, its the students. While the great majority of university students are fair, honest, and of ironclad integrity it is the few dishonest students that render wikipedia a tool to cheat. And it is not fair to those honest students that a few dishonest ones can tamper with wikipedia and give themselves an academic edge they don't deserve.

If i could somehow bar all my students from influencing wikipedia while they are in my course then i would allow them to use wikipedia. Unfortunately (and fortunately in some cases) i don't have omnipotent powers so i'll have to do the next best thing, bar them from citing wikipedia.

That being said, i actually encourage students to use wikipedia to *direct* their research or use it as a starting point for topics they have little knowledge of. Most of the articles in wikipedia while not being 100% accurate are at least 80% accurate and give a clear enough picture written in an easy to follow way that most students can then figure out on their own where to find more credible sources and what information to research.


So I'm all for using wikipedia to advance one's own knowledge but NOT as a citable source for academic work due to the ease at which it can tampered and the argument that one cannot be held responsible for the mistakes of another.

==========================

Something amusing to think about, this is incident is not actually *about* wikipedia but just happens to involve it. This incident could have happened with any other medium and in no way attempts to portray wikipedia in a bad light.


In a rather bizzare incident, i found MYSELF cited in a wikipedia article as a source for the wikipedia article itself. While i was flattered they considered me an authority on the subject in question, the particular paper that i wrote that was used as the source was an unpublished manuscript of recent research that was still ongoing and the article on wikipedia relayed key research discoveries that I was hoping would remain a secret until i could get my findings published in a reputable journal. My discoveries could have been stolen from me and published by another researcher, giving them all the credit. Fortunately for me the topic was obscure enough and the article written badly enough that no one found out and i was able to get my results published before anyone else did. Needless to say I was not pleased with the student responsible for giving out my research without my permission. In this case, it wasn't misinformation that was the problem, it was priviledged information that was misused. The student had apparently went through all this trouble in order to help out their younger sibling who needed to write an article on a recent scientist and all students had to pick a different one. Apparently *I* wasn't famous enough and they needed to up my public profile a little more. (in case your wondering: The older student got my manuscript because he happened to volunteer in my laboratory and I handed it out to all members of the lab for review and editing before i would publish. Although I specifically stated the information was priviledged and not allowed to leave the lab until after publishing.)

 

Aaah. I see your point, Glyph.

I agree that wikipedia may not be a great source all on it's own, but that is what cross checking is for.

__________________
There is no "I" in "team", unless Apple makes it... Then it would be iTeam.

 

Glyph,

That clears up a lot of confusion. Thanks for taking the time to explain the problem.

Mike.