Wikipedia: Can you trust it as a resource?
The Internet can be a wealth of information (some is better than others). With the click of your mouse, you have the choice of thousands of webpages on any given topic. More and more people are turning to the Internet as a resource for research. One page in particular that has become increasingly popular over the past few years is Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is a free multi-lingual encyclopedia that provides articles on any given topic, currently featuring 3.5 million articles, including more than 1 million in English. The articles are written and edited collaboratively by volunteers, and advertises itself as the " free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." It's free content as well as the scope and detail of its articles have made it a very popular reference.
So what's the problem? Anybody who has access to the Internet can create or edit articles anonymously. Hence, I could post or change an article on any topic, whether I've done the necessary research or not (not that I'd do this). Any false information can easily get past the volunteers since there are too few of them to handle all of the fact-checking necessary. Wikipedia has been criticised not only by academic researchers but also by former contributors for lack of reliability and authority, and since anonymous authors post these entries, Wikipedia does not claim accountability for its content and does not hold sources responsible for inaccurate or defamatory information. The most publicized incident was when a Wikipedia post last year claimed that John Seigenthaler Sr. was involved in the Kennedy assasinations, and the author of this article was not tracked down (you can read Seigenthaler's story here).
This is definitely a complicated situation. Personally, I think a free online encyclopedia is a great idea, but they seem to go into this thinking everyone is going to "play nice" and post quality information. That's not neccessarily the case. How many people who post these articles are field professionals who are knowledgeable of the information they are providing? I'm guessing not too many. Until Wiki changes its policies, I think we can trust it only for quick pop culture information or perhaps as a guideline for real research. I personally do not trust it for any serious research.
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re: Wikipedia
Frequently when I'm doing a Web search on a topic, a Wikipedia citation crops up. Not infrequently I find the Wikipedia information to be useful. But I don't trust me, never mind any single (NB) piece of information I find on a website, or in a book for that matter.
We all seem to want to find the magic source that will answer all our questions. One stop shopping. Click and know. Why can't I stop thinking of the Christian Bible right now?
Uh uh. We are human. We err. Not even Einstein got it all right, even in his specialty, deep in the ocean of abstruse mathematics. Every resource has mistakes, all content is flawed.
If I can't do the experiments myself, I look for corroboration. Two, preferably more, sources, independent of each other, that say the same thing or come to the same conclusion. You're still not safe, but at least you're safer.
I would prefer that contributors to Wikipedia were not anonymous. But then I suspect Wikipedia would cease to exist. People with real content want to get paid - or don't want others to know that they're willing to provide content without getting paid, or without subjecting it to peer review.
What I find remarkable is not that it has flaws, but that it is as good as it is in areas I know something about.
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"The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down." - T. S. Eliot
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Wiki is just part of your research.
The Web if full of untruths - and Wiki is no exception. Just think of blogs - there are folk giving their view of the world, their truth. I regard it as useful - all the stuff off the Web, but you do need to do further research to find the truth.
really?
I had no idea anyone can edit the info on the site. Thanks for sharing.
Dreams Matter.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/6562/pchan_stockton.html
Wiki
Thanks. I can usually count on at least a few on this site for interesting and helpful comments. I agree that you can't rely on one resource (website, book, article, etc.) for information, but we live in an instant gratification culture where everyone wants everything now, information included. Being a Open Source geek, I liked the idea of Wikipedia, and a lot the information on it is decent. But some changes should be made to improve it.
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Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. - Edgar Allan Poe