Wikipedia: Good Source or... Not
- Thread starter puglover
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Harbringer
Your A One Flower Garden
Really, what source is reliable?
edit:Wow, I just realized that ive made the kind of post that i hate when posters make, im so sorry
edit:Wow, I just realized that ive made the kind of post that i hate when posters make, im so sorry
flamingzaroc121
Emperor
i actually trust wikipedia because it is right 97% of the time
Gaius Octavius
Deity
- Joined
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- 4,016
I don't like to use it, but where else are you going to find free information like that? (I'm asking this seriously - are there better places?)
What a lot of "experts" and other educated people who rail against it don't understand is that the reason it's so popular is not because anyone can edit it, I think, but because it's free. You have to subscribe to others like Britannica, Grolier, et al., to be able to view anything more than the smallest blurb, and that's just not right. Knowledge should be free. Anything else is fascism.
What a lot of "experts" and other educated people who rail against it don't understand is that the reason it's so popular is not because anyone can edit it, I think, but because it's free. You have to subscribe to others like Britannica, Grolier, et al., to be able to view anything more than the smallest blurb, and that's just not right. Knowledge should be free. Anything else is fascism.
Harbringer
Your A One Flower Garden
I don't like to use it, but where else are you going to find free information like that? (I'm asking this seriously - are there better places?)
What a lot of "experts" and other educated people who rail against it don't understand is that the reason it's so popular is not because anyone can edit it, I think, but because it's free. You have to subscribe to others like Britannica, Grolier, et al., to be able to view anything more than the smallest blurb, and that's just not right. Knowledge should be free. Anything else is fascism.
I like your thinking, knowledge should be something to be shared, not locked away like that.
History_Buff
Deity
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- Aug 12, 2001
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- 6,529
Wikipedia is a good website, since it's quick and addicting.
That said, it's an awful source, since you have no guarantee I didn't just **** with the page 10 minutes before you got there.
That said, it's an awful source, since you have no guarantee I didn't just **** with the page 10 minutes before you got there.
What a lot of "experts" and other educated people who rail against it don't understand is that the reason it's so popular is not because anyone can edit it, I think, but because it's free. You have to subscribe to others like Britannica, Grolier, et al., to be able to view anything more than the smallest blurb, and that's just not right. Knowledge should be free. Anything else is fascism.
I think another attraction is the fact that field testing with a crowd of viewers who can edit eliminates most concerns of bias by an individual. I once went to the library to look up information about the reliability of personality tests. And on the same shelf were two books with entirely different blurbs:
"How your personality sign can affect your daily life!"
"How personality tests have corrupted the science of psychology as we know it."
Now I had no way of knowing if either of them were reliable at all, because of how opinionated the authors were. But then I went on wikipedia, and got a nice short blurb from either side of the debate that satisfied me.
Let's review: I went to the library and spent half an hour getting nothing, then went online and spent a couple minutes getting the tiny bit of information I needed.
I don't like to use it, but where else are you going to find free information like that? (I'm asking this seriously - are there better places?)
What a lot of "experts" and other educated people who rail against it don't understand is that the reason it's so popular is not because anyone can edit it, I think, but because it's free. You have to subscribe to others like Britannica, Grolier, et al., to be able to view anything more than the smallest blurb, and that's just not right. Knowledge should be free. Anything else is fascism.
I completely agree with you. However, it doesn't change the fact that it is not a reliable source - not because anyone can edit it, but because of problems that are inherint in the wikipedia process.
Exactly. I will use it because it is convenient, but it is by no means the end all be all of research. If I am to use Wiki as a source for something official, I will always research other sources to confirm that what the Wiki article states is indeed correct.
skadistic
Caomhanach
Universities are starting to deny the use of Wiki as a resource. That says alot to me.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
depends. If you want to know like a specific date, or some objective fact, or a general overview of a subject, it is great. If you want to actually learn in depth about something it is really only useful insofar as it can link you out to reputable places. In philosophy in particular it is notoriously HORRIBLE, ruled by pomo and/or deconstructionist fanboy idiots with no knowledge of the discipline.
Maimonides
Emperor
No, it's because anyone can edit it. That means it's completely unreliable.
You have to subscribe to others like Britannica, Grolier, et al., to be able to view anything more than the smallest blurb, and that's just not right. Knowledge should be free. Anything else is fascism.
Maybe in Utopia, but, on planet Earth, information is the most valuable commodity.
Exactly.
Fifty
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree that this is generally a good thing, but you can run into trouble with regards to things that are highly specialized and technical.
Example:
In the wiki entry for the philosophy of consciousness, someone kept bringing up the work of David Chalmers, who is one of the world's greatest experts on the subject, to substantiate his BS viewpoints. He had some support from the wiki-editing peanut gallery as well. So DAVID CHALMERS HIMSELF shows up and tries to correct a misrepresentation of his own work, and the peanut gallery shuts him down for being "bias".
Pasi Nurminen
Deity
It's great in theory, but in practice allowing a bunch of nobodys with no expertise on what they write to write as they please renders it useless. The standard wikipedian (I hate that term) response to that is that "good" information will eventually rise to the surface, making Wikipedia either incorrect or correct depending on which time I choose to rely on their discordant mob.
you can just look at the history and see whoever **** with the page since the page was created, and look up each and every version ever created.
Usually in the Talk pages there is also tons of good sources and extra materials that can be helpful for research.
Fugitive Sisyphus
Escape Artist
It depends on how accurate you need to be. For the average school report accuracy is unimportant compared to raw data therefore Wikipedia is a good source.
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