wikipedia; credible or not?

[Marks256]

I am curious to see what others have to say about wikipedia. I vote yes; it is credible. Sure, just about anyone can edit it, but it is moderated by the general public, therefore mistakes aren't as common as one may think.

I would say it is very credible.

 

[dknguyen]

It's credible enough. BUt I have found mistakes in the past.

 

[Marks256]

BUt I have found mistakes in the past.

As have I, but i still go back.

 

[Torben]

It seems about as reliable as just about any other reference, but just as with any other reference, it shouldn't be the only reference used. Check the citations and refs given, and author credentials if you can. And the more political/personal/controversial the topic, the more likely it is to be edit-bombed by people who feel they have a vested interest in what people think.

Just my $0.02.


Torben

 

[quixotron]

its an unofficial encyclopedia. alot of it has useful, relevant, accurate information. but alot isaso unsubstaniated.

 

[theinfamousbob]

I find that errors are corrected quite quickly; I'd imagine thousands of self-important, smart people trawling Wikipedia looking for errors.

Depending on the teacher/professor, I have and have not been allowed to cite Wikipedia as a source. Maybe it'll gain credibility as a source if the editing is restricted.

 

[Pommie]

I voted yes but my children are not allowed to use Wikipedia for anything. It appears to be frowned upon by their teachers.

Mike.

 

[Hero999]

Wikipedia is better than many other sources of information that you actually pay for. An error in a book or CD ROM won't be fixed until the next release but Wikipedia,it likely to be fixed in less than 24 hours.

 

[Salgat]

Has less errors than Britannica, if that means anything. (wikipedia is excellent, and to all it's critics, if you want to verify the facts, use the references at the bottom of the page).

 

[Pommie]

Has less errors than Britannica, if that means anything. (wikipedia is excellent, and to all it's critics, if you want to verify the facts, use the references at the bottom of the page).

It doesn't seem to have many critics, no one has voted no yet!

Mike.

 

[kchriste]

Wiki can be fooled. There was the time that Stephen Colbert, a comedy news host, had his viewers change an entry on the Wiki for a lark. So it can be prone to errors if enough people post supporting information. But in general, I'd say it's pretty reliable.

 

[Marks256]

I voted yes but my children are not allowed to use Wikipedia for anything. It appears to be frowned upon by their teachers.

That is one reason why i asked. Our teachers frown upon us using wikipedia, but i use it regardless what the teachers say. When they complain about it, i usually just argue my point until they give in...

 

[Hank Fletcher]

I say it's credible. The technical and DIY information I've found is consistently reliable. Often times, things like tables of technical figures are incomplete, but you still get more information of fairly detailed subjects than you would in a general encyclopedia.

There are two details behind the development of Wiki, one that justifies why you should argue for it as credible reference, and one that suggests why you shouldn't cite Wiki as a resource.

Pro citation: It's just about the most democratic collection of human understanding to date. There's an important argument to be made that the canon of human knowledge only consists of what we agree on as being "true," regardless of how closely that truth reflects reality. Any requirement to cite the research of others is a submission to the understanding of truth of another person or group of people. Being inherently social in nature, your argument would be: the more people invited to inform the truth, by definition will increase the likeliness their understanding is true. This argument of course presumes the benevolence of people towards one another as self-evident.

Con citation: At best, Wiki is anecdotal evidence of, mostly, secondary research. The ultimate goal when citing a reference in a scholarly paper is to get as close to the source as possible. At the top end of things, this is university research exploring our world, collecting quantitative and qualitative data, and theorizing about things. Suppose your paper was on the paintings of Renoir.
**broken link removed**
Wiki, your school's encyclopedia, or a postcard with a reproduction of something like the above are all secondary resources. In Wiki's case, it's unlikely that the information provided about this or any other subject has been reviewed by anyone who can be unequivocally championed as the best expert in that particular subject. You're just going off what most people think is quite likely the truth - more what they feel, than what they know, and based on their own limited understanding and experience in the subject. The best way to write a paper on Renoir is to go and see the actual painting(s) you're writing about, go to the place Renoir was born, walk in his footsteps and trace his career: his life, his tecnique. Become the closest thing to being Renoir. Reference those specific artifacts from his life: his brush, his house, his work, that you've seen for yourself. Those are primary resources. What you want to do is get as close to that reality as possible. Your teachers/profs will no doubt simply consider Wiki just too far removed from reality.

 

[dknguyen]

The best way to write a paper on Renoir is to go and see the actual painting(s) you're writing about, go to the place Renoir was born, walk in his footsteps and trace his career: his life, his tecnique. Become the closest thing to being Renoir. Reference those specific artifacts from his life: his brush, his house, his work, that you've seen for yourself. Those are primary resources. What you want to do is get as close to that reality as possible. Your teachers/profs will no doubt simply consider Wiki just too far removed from reality.

Perhaps...but I think the cost outweighs the benefit in that case. I have better things to do...like sleep...and have money.

 

[BeeBop]

Wikipedia is better than many other sources of information that you actually pay for. An error in a book or CD ROM won't be fixed until the next release but Wikipedia,it likely to be fixed in less than 24 hours.

After studying electronics using texts by Floyd (Prentice Hall,) I really must agree. Every edition has a ton of mistakes (especially in their answers to problems.) They fix those in the next edition, and introduce many more. Errors such as these are often very confusing to a new learner.

The best way to write a paper on Renoir is to go and see the actual painting(s) you're writing about, go to the place Renoir was born, walk in his footsteps and trace his career: his life, his tecnique. Become the closest thing to being Renoir. Reference those specific artifacts from his life: his brush, his house, his work, that you've seen for yourself. Those are primary resources. What you want to do is get as close to that reality as possible. Your teachers/profs will no doubt simply consider Wiki just too far removed from reality.

I had an art history prof who claimed it was not necessary to view the work to write the history, although I tend to agree with you.
With anything which involves opinion, rather than fact, it is difficult, or impossible to have a correct answer.
If you are familiar with the work of Roland Barthes, the author is dead, and with good reason. When the power structures are disassembled, the reason becomes evident. That is a good reason that:

it shouldn't be the only reference used. Check the citations and refs given, and author credentials if you can. And the more political/personal/controversial the topic, the more likely it is to be edit-bombed by people who feel they have a vested interest in what people think.

Many who profess, are also guilty of an overabundance of pride, and have such vested interest; this doesn't just happen on Wickipedia.

Our paradigm is shifting away from the idea that an individual can produce truth, because of the fact that we are all susceptible to the drunkenness which power can produce in the individual. In most cases, the careless tossing around of the term 'genius,' will posit the user in a precarious place, with respect to those who are 'up on their reading.' Instead, we are beginning to realize that truth may surface, in a situation in which there is nothing personal at steak, such as the work done in collaboration.

 

[BeeBop]

Perhaps...but I think the cost outweighs the benefit in that case. I have better things to do...like sleep...and have money.

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.

 

[JimB]

If you are familiar with the work of Roland Barthes, the author is dead, and with good reason.

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

 

[Glyph]

Wikipedia in regards to students and teachers

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.)

 

[Marks256]

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.

 

[Pommie]

Glyph,

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

Mike.