Wikipedia. So...how accurate is it?
 

It's possibly one of the most comprehensive and up to date online information sources. But, being that the info is user submitted, how does the information hold up when tested against facts (if tested at all) ?

Have there been any cases of the site giving flat out incorrect information and claiming it as fact? Also, if it truly is full of accurate info on practicaly everything, I wonder how long it'll remain a free service.

In before Wikiality.

I've seen a few minor inaccuracies here in there. I don't really remember what they were, but I remembered thinking, "that's not correct" a few times while browsing through wikipedia. That's not to say that it's a bad source. It's just not something you would consider a "scholarly" source.

The ugliest bits of Wikipedia are the ideology topics. The software basically relies on people to stake out their ideological turf in order to get a comprehensive article on the subject. And a fairly comprehensive article gets made, but the rates at which these are revised, copyedited, factchecked, organised, have certain language modified for a neutral point of view, etc. takes fuckloads longer, because the Zionists/Marxists/LaRouche cultists/Anarcho-capitalists form these faggy cabals and MONITOR EVERY SINGLE CHANGE 24/7.

I swear, genuine internal editing on Wikipedia really becomes a case of '4chan with table manners' sometimes.

If you're after the GDP of Latvia or the PM of Malaysia, go ahead. But think very fucking carefully before you take anything on the 'iffier' sections as a given.

Come to think of it, there was a huge edit brawl over the classification of Malaysia as "middle-income" or "upper middle-income".

Lolz. How did Malaysia come into question of wikipedia?

And.. upper-middle income?

Bull. If we were upper middle income, not getting JPAs won't be a problem.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...l/438900a.html
http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,69844-0.html

So there.

it's pretty accurate. it even has a definition of itself in wikipedia.

i have not found any issues... maybe i am looking up the wrong topics...

Hasn't this subject been discussed here already?

Instead of running off at the mouth again, I'll simply say that Stephen Colbert and his example involving the elephant entry makes a more resounding statement as to the stupidity of Wikipedia than I ever could hope to make myself.

It also doesn't help that "founder Jimmy Wales has already told users not to cite Wikipedia as a source". (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060801-7396.html)

At least it isn't urban dictionary, which is essentially a dictionary equivalent of Wikipedia without any sense of control.

I couldn't agree with you more, although I commend you on an excellent descriptive comparison which I would not have thought of. They refer to "edit wars" and it's every bit as intense as any kind of a flame war that you see on any forum. They are just a little more polite about it.

Most of the time, I think of the accuracy as something that's proportionate to the amount of users editing; the more users involved, the more likely that things like shitty comments that aren't related and topic focus is key. Usually.

That's usually blown out of the water by "touchy" topics when solid facts aren't presented/personal edit agendas are the mainstay. Take a look at any large article, there was probably an edit war somewhere in there. :cow:

So yeah. I think that most of the content could be considered accurate, but I wouldn't base everything on that alone.

Its a good source of information. But if I'm actually gonna use it in something important I'd cross-check it with other sources first. Still, its one of the fastest and most efficient ways to obtain information.

The problem with that is because I can guarantee you that the vast, overwhelming majority of people on Wikipedia have no right to write about any of the subjects they edit.

If one person was to write a convincing, well spoken edit that Harrison Ford is a closet homosexual, and then 10 people made sure that the edit would stay there - it becomes fact to someone else who reads it without a grain of salt.

Before you say "Well, this is the internet, they should know to be skeptical!" - thats the whole reason that Wikipedia does not and will never work. Some people don't know enough not to take things at face value while others simply see it as a tool for disinformation or humor.

It simply boils down to mob mentality. If X people out number Y people on Subject A - then whatever X wants becomes fact for Subject A. I don't know about the rest of you - but why do you want to be a part of ignorance? Do you have such fun chasing the Frankenstein Monster up to that windmill?

Wikipedia however can be a nice compendium of links to more reliable authorities on many of its subjects that a researcher might not have been previously aware of. Thats why I go there when I'm looking something up I don't know much about at all.

Indeed, mob mentality does not, by default, make something right. However, that does not mean that the mob is never right.

Guaranteed reliable truth? No.

Completely useless? Hardly.

Some people are way too hard on Wikipedia. In all honesty, it's remarkably accurate for a user-edited encyclopedia. But one definitely needs to take anything found there with a grain of salt, and cross-checking is always a good idea.

My english teacher was suppose to tell us why Wikipedia isn't a good source to use for our research paper. I'll have to ask him why... otherwise I will be using it :p

I can't say that I use it for any academic purposes, typically I'm browsing for information about mass media, tv shows, that type of thing. And even then, I only truly trust the articles that concern topics that are broad enough that I know enough people have seen it for it to be accurate.

Yeah you'll have the dumbasses trying to pull pranks, but there are a lot of people there, that honestly work hard to make sure that garbage gets cleaned out.

It may not be perfect, but at the very least it can point you in the right direction. At least in most cases.

It's a good starting point if you know nothing about a subject at all. I use it the same way I use everything2.com--as a quick, possibly inaccurate overview. You can't possibly expect to use it as a valid reference source, though. That's like people saying that Cosmo magazine is a scholarly journal.

I remember a study that showed that Wikipedia was only slightly less innacurate than Encyclopedia Britannica.

The problem with that is that the statement only lasts as long as the space between entry edits.

I use it for simple stuff for the most part. Such as explaining to my friends and sometimes family what the game Squash is. And also for other various things, such as actor ages and whatnot.

I find it fairly accurate, although sometimes there are problems. Such an example is how much inaccurate stuff was put into the NASCAR page. I know everyone finds NASCAR boring (Except me for the most part), but that doesn't mean people have to spam it.

I have found some slight inaccuracies. I wouldn't suggest using it as a main resource in a paper. I use it to find things like...
when I wanted to get some background info about diventart, or when I wanted to look up teh history of anime, or when I even looked up a certain anime in order to brush up on some of the points in it (I was doing a critique of that anime). but over all, I think it's very good, especially if you can kinda tell when something doesn't seem right

When I had one-on-one conferences with my writing students, and I saw that they had drawn heavily on the Wikipedia, I would open up my laptop and show them a page, and then alter the information on that page in real time, adding misinformation in a way that was unlikely to be immidiately noticed.

I changed it back, of course, but it was a powerful example to them of just how easily someone with half a brain could alter an entry in a convincing and wholly misleading way.

I also showed them the Penny Arcade comic of Skeletor altering He-Man's Wikipedia entry. They didn't get it--the damn kids had never heard of Skeletor or He-Man!

That doesn't surprise me, and honestly, anyone beliving anything on Wikipedia as ABSOLUTE TRUTH deserves to look like a fool. But if that example did happen, it would just invoke drama and that fancy-pants editing lock on it. XD

Which is what those type of people want, of course. :3

So then - why have it at all? If its to be used as ANY type of reference - not for school papers but to find even the most asinine subjects and is prone to being askewed by e-jerks, what good is it?

Do you people LIKE being lied to constantly?

It's accurate for the most part.

The only thing I hate about it is that when I edit an article in order to insert some "cool facts" about a certain person's career, some other person edits it out saying it's not needed. It's just a battle of control. In the end, we compromise.

Heh, I've also been told that Wikipedia would not be accepted as a reference site for research pages. A good example of why is the disclaimer on the entry about the "Mona Lisa" painting by Leonard da Vinci.

I had a debate with someone a while ago over some inaccurate wiki information on the entries pertaining to the Zoids "Chaotic Century"/"Guardian Force" anime. English Wikipedia lists those two titles as seperate series (34 vs 33 episodes), while Wikipedia Japan puts both under the series "Zoids" (67 episodes). Considering the Japanese animation production website ALSO lists it as one 67 episode series, I like to go with the Japanese info as "correct".

It's a sign of what a fandom can apply to a series, which ends up being considered "official" across that fandom, whether it actually is or not. I don't mind the distinction, I just don't like the false official-ness.

That won't happen, Wikipedia is ANAL about citations.

Because a source of information doesn't have to be an official reference to be useful. The official rates of innacuracies in Wikipedia are about the same as those of Encyclopedia Brittanica ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...d_in_Wikipedia ) which makes it a reliable source for casual browsing. Really, the number of times I've used Wikipedia for non-academic research far outnumbers the times I've used it as a starting point for an essay. Through hyperlinking, I've often been able to get a deep understanding of the broad context surrounding a single entry, which is incredibly useful. Yes, e-vandalism is a problem, but you take risks when you read any text. Just because it's not open source doesn't mean the author is telling the truth.

And still, Wikipedia often provides citations for its facts, which most often can be used for academic purposes.



Is this some sort of crude red herring or am I misunderstanding you? I don't remember evidence that there is not a single bit of truth on Wikipedia. Constantly?

Somehow - people on the internet (which in and of it's self is an extremely dubious thing best left for a seperate discussion) aren't the smartest, most talented or best equipt people to say anything about any subject ever.

Why? James Pearson Assfuck of Bounty Hive, Montana can pretend he's Professor Bordem Q Faggot and stick 3,000 facts about any one given subject to hide any one given lie. That single lie totally destroys whatever validity the subject has because who's to say someone is to find it?

How many times does someone edit an entry and have some asshole take it down because it slanders what they like? I've heard of that happening all too often on sources about Hans Zimmer or James Horner. Say whatever fact you like about a subject - if some shitheel on Wiki disagrees with it, they can delete it.

In the short run, all you are is a mouthpeice of ignorance and stupidity by even glancing at that site.

That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever read in my life.

Information doesn't have to be TRUE for it to be USED. What are you, Sean McCormack? You going to tell me that theres UMD somewhere?

Citing Wikipedia about the validity of Wikipedia is like asking a rapist if he's guilty.

That aside, casual browsing in the way you paint it is fine if you enjoy being lied to. If thats your thing, fine - but I don't tolerate it, so if you want to go on being an uneducated ponce, don't tout it here is all.

No, it isn't -- this is empty Lunix jerk rhetoric, a clear example of people taking a term that has nothing to do with their project because they think it sounds smart.

The Wikipedia isn't a form of peer review at all. When you submit an academic paper for peer review, it's actually reviewed by the acknowledged, accredited experts *before* publication. The Wikipedia does none of this -- it publishes without any sort of review at all, and it in no way shape or form guarantees that your writing will be reviewed by experts.

Settle down :)

You're a person on the internet. Cynicism is a belief but not an argument.

Aside from the blatant homophobism suggested by his pseudonym, Mr. Assfuck will quickly have to provide sources for his information before his "facts" are found to be erroneous and deleted. That's partly my attraction to wikipedia. It doesn't matter if he pretends to be the President of France or a high school teacher, because no one can verify his identity, he will have to provide evidence to support the claims hemakes.

You might want to check out what's happening to the page on the Armenian genocide as we speak. As you may know, the validity of the "genocide," although significantly supported by factual evidence, is disputed (particularly amongst Turkish scholars). The reason I want to you to take a look at it (and its talk page) is so you realize how much more complicated the issue is when "slander" is disputed. The Turks aren't really happy that such a page even exists, it's interesting to see how the Wikipedia community is dealing with it.

For your own sake I will ignore any ad hominem/ poisening of the well on your part. I'll do my best, but it's usually more convincing when you use proper rhetoric, especially when we the subject of the conversation is "validity" :).



Straw man fallacy :)


My citation wasn't about Wikipedia's validity :), it was a verifiable source. You have no excuse; the encyclopedia Britannica is available for you to verify the facts on the page.

Evidence is your friend, particularly when you are criticizing Wikipedia for lacking evidence. You haven't provided significant evidence that Wikipeda consistantly spread "lies" and false information.


I don't think so. Your comment suddenly brought "constistent lying" into the argument when the original subject was about validity; that sounds like a red herring to me. My concern isn't really appearing intelligent. I'm confident enough in my rhetoric that I can use it without flaunting it.

I understand, but just because a paper is not peer review does not mean it is a lie, especially when it cites all its sources which are themselves peer reviewed. You seem to keep ignoring that most pages on Wikipedia do that.

Most wikipedia information seems to be accurate. I highly doubt people would write up a long, detailed entry that's false, let alone it go unnoticed. I've seen multiple fake entries, all which have been taken off the site.

However, it's true that people often put a bunch of subjective crap in there and add crummy links.

Wasn't it about a year ago, around the time aforementioned Penny Arcade strip was published, when Wikipedia received a lot of bad press regarding inaccuracies and vandalism? Kinda like that whole "Et tu, Firefox?" affair, when people realized that the latest open-source shooting star - god forbid - was not free of bugs either.

Sufficient to say that I happily go about my Wikipedia business (reading and contributing) using Firefox, my point being, that there is no such thing as a flawless system. Yet with enough people involved there is always a good chance for improvement. Too bad the templates {{sprotected}} and {{fact}} don't get as much press as the events which made them necessary in the first place.

A few words for LeHah: Chill! If you don't like Wikipedia, that's your thing but the way you're bashing that medium and everyone even remotely involved with it, all you're achieving is to look like an idiot. I share your problem with people being ignorant against better knowledge but in this case, this might as well work both ways.

I like browsing it for casual information, but I don't use it as a credible source for researching scholarly stuff. One of my history professors said that a research paper he was given by a student was word for word what was written on Wikipedia, and he said he found a lot of inaccuracies on that particular page (I think it was a WW2 topic).

Another professor said stuff similar to other peeps here, what's to stop a guy from writing things one way, and trying to make it a fact? What if the kingdom of France according to most accredited historians existed in the 11th century, but some guy wants it to have been established in the 7th century and then edits it accordingly?

And yeah, I've seen some interesting stuff before. While it's not as bad now (thanks to a bot that automatically reverts pages that get dramatically changed, but this is far from perfect), one time I looked up "dinosaur", and got a page saying that it's fake, and that God is going to punish people for saying all these lies and stuff.

Another interesting one I saw was "woman". The page I saw was basically "woman R teh Suq, they're bastages, etc, etc." apparently some guy got dumped recently and decided to get rid of everything that was written there, and replace it with what was essentially the online equivalent of graffiti.

Maybe in like 50 years it'll be credible enough to be a respectable source. But until then, if you cite wikipedia as a reliable source, and then the information is wrong, then you'll look like an idiot, which is why professors increasingly don't accept wikipedia sources (it might be okay for a general overview, but don't rely solely on them).

Dinosaurs... oh gawd. XD

I remember when SheezyArt last had issues, and I found the wikipedia entry on it that was quite outright slandering the progress of the SheezyArt site and its content. I wish I had saved the entry, because it was changed later. It was pretty funny. I'll give Wiki credit that they seem to be pretty quick at fixing the outrageous stuff like that.

But yeah... if you really want more accurate information, I'd say get a book.

If you're looking for more casual information, like wanting to know the list of every single Pokémon to date, for example, then Wiki is a pretty darn good source, but I'd never use it for actual research. Go get an encyclopedia for those.

I still disagree. Never cite wikipedia, or paraphrase it, but it's a great tool for research because it has so many links to peer reviewed sources that you might not find through google. It's all about knowing how to use your tools.

As a general information source, Wikipedia works quite well. It's a very good resource for two main areas: the factual/well known subjects which are also covered by other encyclopedias, and for information about subjects that wouldn't have any comprehensive amount of data on them in any particular place otherwise.

For major topics like historical figures and basic principles and facts about a major subject, it does a very good job of providing facts and information at pretty much the same pace as a normal encyclopedia. And also, for subjects that otherwise wouldn't really get any attention in a normal encyclopedia (facts about a certain movie or game series, the history of a company, data about technologies, etc.), it's a nice resource when you wouldn't really be able to easily find any information on those subjects anywhere else. For those topics, about the only other place you'd find data on them would be random websites dedicated to those particular subjects, but often they aren't as comprehensive as Wikipedia and sometimes are wrong more often than Wikipedia.

It's weakest when it comes to the more controversial subjects or highly debatable information, or about specific people. For those, there's a higher chance of having false or outdated information being posted and vandalism. But usually those are areas that aren't going to be covered by many other sources without being prone to bias or factual innacurracies as well, so it's a bit of a toss up since you'd just be kinda screwed in general if you're looking for research on those topics.

In general Wikipedia is a good source, especially since they almost always have links that cite their sources and usually give a warning before parts that may have innacuracies are don't cite where the information is from. Of course it's mainly just good to use as a starting point or to get a basic overline of a subject, and occasionally pages will be sabotaged (I've rarely seen that outside of the heated debatable subjects, though), but overall it's a good source that offers a large range of facts quickly.

Just remember that the information there is usually paraphrased to begin with, so there's not much point to taking specific quotes from it and referencing it directly when you can use the original source that's cited at the bottom of the page for it.

Wikipedia is my Nr.1 page when I want to get an overview on a certain topic. There are several topics or questions that pop up in my head, for which I want to investigate it further. A few years ago, I didn't bother any longer, since I didn't want to waste my time searching with Google or reading books. But Wikipedia is just a click away and when I type in the word of my interest I get a nice and comprehensive article in almost all cases.

Wikipedia is also perfectly suited for niche topics like animes or games. There are various animes and RPGs that are inspired of classical topics of history, fiction or religion (for example, the origin of Count Dracula in Hellsing or Planet Styx in Star Ocean 3, which origin lies in greek mythology), which gets you firstly more involved with the actual stories and you have a better understanding and secondly it's always good for general education.
In that case, Wikipedia has made my life easier on a certain degree.

Wikipedias weakness are topics like politics, philosophy or religion where you have various opposing sides that edit each others' articles. It's especially annoying in times of election, there you have to get your hands off Wikipedia because you don't know if one statement about a party is true or if it's maliciously altered by another one.

Well of course not. Being completely uninformed, you can't really make a statement with any kind of impact.

Wikipedia articles are fantastic when the rules (eg. Neutral Point Of View) are followed. It's some users who are stupid, not Wikipedia as a whole.

Reading some of your posts, I wholeheartedly agree.

Gad, that I have to come near the very end of this thread to find something reflecting my point of view on this topic...

It's rather simple: the stronger the opinions on a topic (or the more irrational haters), the more the chances for inaccuracies, especially now that wikipedia has gotten so popular. The 'net is full of know-it-alls who find ways to disagree with even the world's foremost experts on anything (2+2=4? WTF?), and some of them will always want to try to "fix" anything that isn't consistent with their percieved knowledge, right or wrong. That, or they just wanna prank on their favorite targets. But all that usually comes from resentment over a person's or item's success or praise (better look up Tom Cruise or Eminem somewhere else). The aforementioned is also why no source can ever be definitive anymore. But I'd have no qualms about looking up info on any of the 50 states in the Union, or on mathematics, geometry, etc. Another example: you'd be fine reading about the workings of different audio compression technologies, but you'd probably wanna stop when you get to quality comparisons.

Wikipedia is like the Google of research sites...its going to get soooo popular...

I tend to use Wikipedia for basic information, generally if I want to find out about a video game or anime series that I'm not familiar with at all. It's a good general resource, and I have added some of my web sites that have information about subjects I know to be correct (because it came from official sources), but that's mostly on games and other things. I'm an English major, I'd never use it as an actual source for anything.

For the most part, it's fairly accurate. Some of the people do have a grasp on what they write and if accurate details can be added later on, great. It's not the be-all and end-all of anything, but it's a useful tool for various things.

Teachers and professors hate it though..but i could care less. Ctrl C and Ctrl V work fine for me. Thanx wiki!

Wikipedia is accurate as much as you want it :dealer:

yeah, it's pretty spot on on it's info. a little too advanced sometimes

I don't consider it a viable source for information in regards to anything academic. Mainly because anyone can just write whatever the hell they want. You don't know where they got it, and I'm sure no one actually bothers to credit their sources. No matter how true something seems, it may be totally off base, which leads to you looking like an idiot in front of the teacher you try and pass the information off to in any form. Besides, if they know about wikipedia, they'll know if you copy and paste information directly from the site. Plagiarism, anyone?

lmfao. Try visiting the site before you criticize it.