Wikiasari

[Red Door]

But its a quick reference for obscure topics.

Most of the time i use it when im just curious.

And many times it is right. In fact id say well over 98% of the time its right.

Not true. I can usually find 1 or 2 things wrong with most articles.

 

[Xanikk999]

Its still a wonderfully quick reference on almost anything in the known universe.

 

[Mirc]

Just wondering why dont you like wikipedia?

If you have a question about anything, scientific, historical, or whatnot, you can find out everything about it on wikipedia.

Whats there not to like about it?

Well I edited a little my post above to make it clear.

The reasons why I don't like Wikipedia are: I saw a lot of articles with wrong or incomplete information, for example I was linked to an article that said king Dusan of Serbia was a legend made up by Tito crazyeye, which I am absolutely totally sure it's not true. Also 3 times I tried to edit Wiki with information I was sure about, and it was reversed each time.

True, if you search for scientific articles you are most likely to get to a correct one, as I haven't seen any wrong one so far. But I seriously don't trust Wikipedia on History and Demographics. What I like is that it has various rare pictures (that I couldn't find anywhere else). Example of wrong information: they compared the densities of the European capitals and major cities, and sometimes they considered the full population of European capitals and major cities (including suburbs) and sometimes just the population of the city itself (without suburbs). For example they considered Istanbul without suburbs which would mean it has 4,000,000 inhabitants while it has about 9,000,000. However London was there with the suburbs! So the comparison is null and void. That's just an example. I've seen many others.

 

[Mirc]

Not true. I can usually find 1 or 2 things wrong with most articles.

Exactly, and except short articles many of them contradict each other (in a pretty subtle manner, but they do). For example I was reading an article about Aromanians in the Balkans and first they said there are around 3,000,000 of them, after later in the same article they said they are 300,000 of them. From what I know, there are about 2,600,000 and some with an uncertain status, so I tried to edit the last one, saying clearly there are 300,000 of them, and it was reversed in less than 2 hours. Also there are things I'm sure about, and they are saying something else. For example they said Romanian has 25% slavic words, while I know less than 9% of them are slavic. And I know this from the following sources: my schoolbook from several years ago; official government site; official linguistic institute site; 2 foreign encyclopedias.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

This would be to slow to be a good search engine. I think google will be the best for a long time. Allthough they could have an intresting websites section but not a full search engine.

 

[ThePhysicist]

Wikiasari would be manipulated, sure. But we all know about Google bombs, do we not?

Here's an example

Personally, I think it will be very difficult to replace algorithms with the work of people in this case. An encyclepedia (with a number of preset terms and names) is far simpler than a search engine (which must handle a virtually infinite number of potential inputs).

Google will likely win this one. Not a bad concept though, and I'm interested to see how it turns out.

 

[Ansar]

Google will never be defeated!

I personally dont like Wikipedia. Also, for school-related assignments, teachers dont allow it and it doesent have the facts that I need.

 

[cegman]

For most historic events the article will be close enough to give a basic overview and give links to sources. If it doesn't have the sources don't trust it but if you are doing school use those sources at the bottom of wiki.

 

[.Shane.]

I like google, but I see nothing wrong w/ some additional competition, especially w/ a unique approach, in this field. What's not to like here?

 

[tossi]

google is pretty screwed up currently. I can get better results with intelligent surfing.

 

[Bad Player]

Not true. I can usually find 1 or 2 things wrong with most articles.

But this assumes that you are right of course.

 

[greekguy]

Google will never be defeated!

I personally dont like Wikipedia. Also, for school-related assignments, teachers dont allow it and it doesent have the facts that I need.

I wrote a 2 page paper on Huntington's disease not too long ago, and the only 2 sources i used were wikipedia and answers.com. i got an A on the paper and the teacher didn't complain about the sources, so wikipedia is very useful. in fact, most of my research papers in 9th and 10th grade have info mostly from wikipedia (of course, so papers require sources other than internet). wikipedia is useful, but i don't plan on using their search engine. wiki is to acquire knowledge, while Google is to find opinions and places and random ****.

 

[Azash]

Can't wait for the goatse-link vandalism

 

[Lockesdonkey]

If you know that a Wikipedia article is wrong, edit it. And that's one less mistake. If someone reverts it, then find a good citation or some other good reason to believe you're right. That's the entire point of Wikipedia. As long as people do this, Wikipedia will have the best information available. It certainly will have more.

 

[mdwh]

Out of interest, what are people using instead of Wikipedia then? I mean, I can understand commercial encyclopedias being better if you have access, but I still believe that Wikipedia is the best free encyclopedia (as in speech and beer).

Let's face it - before Wikipedia existed, people weren't checking up on Britannica for their facts, they were doing things like looking at some random webpage found on a Google search.