Why wikipedia?

[>:^|]

Why do people cite wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) like it's a credible source? It looks like anybody can enter information in it. :confused:

I came across a couple of wikipedia articles recently that contained some glaring errors and misstatements of fact. It made me curious as to how it's become such a widely-cited source.

[Faithless]

I look at it for it's definitions.

And if it agrees with my knowledge, I'd probably sight it.

But then again, I think Urban Dictionary is god, too.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Wikipedia caters to college students like myself who are too lazy to search the internet for credible sources much less actually go to the library. As long as my profs don't complain, I'll keep using it ^^

[Emperor_Mike]

Yeah, Wikipedia has its faults. I'd like to contribute something to the "Thirty Years' War" section, but as far as I can tell it's pretty complete.

[amietron]

i cited it as one of the sources for my computer class project a few weeks ago, for its history of video games.

[ism]

Depends how developed the article is. A lot of them are "stubs" and haven't gone through the revision process, where errors are fixed. New articles usually have two revisions -- there are a group of editors that sweep new entries for style but don't check the veracity of the statements. It's unfortunate when it's an obscure (for the internet) topic since it may take time before that actually happens. Actually, they have always requested that article writers cite their sources.

As for anyone being able to edit it. That's the point. A revision history is kept and an article can be rolled back to any previous state. In terms of it being credible, it's probably a good idea to look at the revision history and who made the changes, as well as the "Talk" page. A good idea to cite the revision stamp instead of the date visited, as well, I think, counter to what the MLA says, since an article may go through several revisions a day.

[>:^|]

Your professors allow you to use it as a source? :confused:

[ism]

Your professors allow you to use it as a source? :confused:

I would assume most undergrad and below classes would allow 1-2 internet sites, and Wikipedia does strive for accuracy. In all honesty, I think in the more charged topics, it's less biased than the PoS World Book. Citing from an encyclopedia of any kind is weak though.

[Faithless]

Wikipedia in the footnotes: (http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/buzz/archives/004405.html)

March 01, 2005
What to do when students begin consulting Wikipedia as an "authoritative" source? College professor Clay Shirky offers a common-sense perspective:

Hundreds, if not thousands of us must be getting papers this year with Wikipedia URLs in the footnotes, and despite the moral panic, the Wikipedia is a fine resource on a large number of subjects, and can and should be cited in those cases. There are articles, as danah has pointed out, where it would be far better to go to the primary sources, but that would be as true were a student to cite any encyclopedia. ...
To borrow some Hemingway, this is how the academy will get used to Wikipedia — slowly, then all at once.

(Note: I added the hyperlink above.)
.
Wikipedia needs help to keep growing (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/developer/0,39020387,39189592,00.htm)
Ingrid Marson in Brussels * ZDNet UK * March 01, 2005, 15:40 GMT

FOSDEM: The surging popularity of Wikipedia means there is big demand for volunteers who can run servers and fight off spambots

The team running Wikipedia has urged the open source development community to lend their support to help the encyclopaedia project grow and to combat Web bots that are damaging its content.

In the opening talk at the FOSDEM conference in Brussels on Saturday, Wikipedia Foundation president Jimmy Wales urged the assembled audience of open source developers to get involved with the online encyclopaedia. He said Wikipedia has the physical resources to handle the extra traffic, but needs technical people to manage these servers.

"We need your help," said Wales. "Buying servers is easy; we have offers of servers or bandwidth. Growing Web traffic is easy; we have been doubling every three months for as long as we can remember. We have 50 servers [at present], but going from 50 to 100, or to 200, will need a huge amount of work, such as redesigning the network."

Volunteer systems administrators are able to keep the site running at the moment, but Wales is concerned that it may not be able to cope as the traffic continues growing. It will take time for developers or administrators to learn more about the environment, so Wikipedia needs people to volunteer now.

"Routine server administration by volunteers works OK now, but as our traffic continues to double, we need more people," said Wales. "You can imagine how interesting it is when running 50 servers with the volumes we get. Some of this is boring grunt work, but it needs doing."

"We're not doubling our developer base as fast as our editor base. Unlike with editing and reading there is a learning curve for development. We need people to start getting involved now before the need is critical."

Wales added that Wikipedia also needs developers to work on tools that can help tackle the threat of spambots, which insert spam into Wikipedia, and vandalbots, which delete or change content in Wikipedia.

"It's very important that Wikipedia doesn't become the next Usenet," said Wales. "We need to maintain the quality of the content. There are software features that enable users to monitor the content, but we need a feature to roll back a large number of changes done by a vandalbot or spambot."

Spambots are particularly problematic for smaller Wikipedia projects that are not able to constantly monitor the site and block the bot before it causes too much damage.

"There are spambots that have been written that insert spam into Wikipedia," said Wales. "This is generally a minor problem -- when the bot starts to insert links we can block it and remove the links. But with small Wiki's that only have a few people working on them, the spambot can come in over the weekend and it is a lot of work to clean up. We would be very interested in developers who could write software to keep Wikipedia as open as possible for humans, but block spambots."

Some of the new projects that the Wikipedia Foundation has created, such as its dictionary Wiktionary and its biological species repository Wikispecies, need new tools to be developed to allow the entry of hierarchical structured data.

"Wiki text is freeform, but many types of data are better handled in a structured way, such as the data in Wiktionary and Wikispecies. We need developers to work on the user interface and database design to allow people to edit structural, hierachical data," Wales told FOSDEM.

Developers that are interested in joining the Wikipedia project should sign up to the Wikitech-I mailing list or join the MediaWiki IRC channel.

[Craig]

I used to contribute to Wikipedia. However in some of these 'charged' topics the viewpoint was undeniable Western and American. Events in places like Iraq when they occurred, would have people immediately deleting viewpoints that weren't in support of Bush and America, etc. Even on topics of lesser charge, if you found something that was not substantiated, oftentimes people would put in their own beliefs as facts. Guess that's the American way, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it to be true. On a side note, one of the primary founders even left Wikipedia and publicly wrote against it; Don't have the links handy though (I think it was slashdotted though).

[hooligan]

Isn't Wilipedia some sort of Linux based archive?

[onnihs]

Wikipedia caters to college students like myself who are too lazy to search the internet for credible sources much less actually go to the library. As long as my profs don't complain, I'll keep using it ^^

hmm.. i just came across this dilemma today. how does one cite wikipedia parenthetically?

[Faithless]

hmm.. i just came across this dilemma today. how does one cite wikipedia parenthetically?
Well, maybe the goal should be -- use Wikipedia as a resource, but find supporting sources that you can use parenthetically. :tongue:

[Yeahman]

Having been involved in a Wikipedia editing war, I'm surprised that it hasn't collapsed already. I still use it though, with a grain of salt.

[onnihs]

Well, maybe the goal should be -- use Wikipedia as a resource, but find supporting sources that you can use parenthetically. :tongue:

haha that's what i did :) good call.

[kuilong]

I used to contribute to Wikipedia. However in some of these 'charged' topics the viewpoint was undeniable Western and American. Events in places like Iraq when they occurred, would have people immediately deleting viewpoints that weren't in support of Bush and America, etc. Even on topics of lesser charge, if you found something that was not substantiated, oftentimes people would put in their own beliefs as facts. Guess that's the American way, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it to be true. On a side note, one of the primary founders even left Wikipedia and publicly wrote against it; Don't have the links handy though (I think it was slashdotted though).

You referring to this (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25)? He notes that he supports "the mission and broad policy outlines of Wikipedia". And he left when Bomis run out of money to fund his position.

But honestly, how much fact-checking goes into the average book? How many books even claim to adhere to a strict NPOV policy?

[hooligan]

Having been involved in a Wikipedia editing war, I'm surprised that it hasn't collapsed already. I still use it though, with a grain of salt.

ok, maybe wikipedia isn't that great.

[Filiprish]

The info is reviewed before it's posted. I can't live without Wikipedia.

[yuuteya]

whats a wiki? is that like a hicky?

[Filiprish]

Wiki is supposed to mean fast. It's supposed to be net lingo. That's what the Wikipedia website says.

[yuuteya]

thanks. wiki means fast huh. it makes sense. i remember when we were doing breakdance, one guy brought a song that a strange voice like miki mouse said like, yo boyz yall breaking fast like the wiki-wiki wiki-wiki, it was an electro funk song. maybe its from hip hop culture?

[Filiprish]

thanks. wiki means fast huh. it makes sense. i remember when we were doing breakdance, one guy brought a song that a strange voice like miki mouse said like, yo boyz yall breaking fast like the wiki-wiki wiki-wiki, it was an electro funk song. maybe its from hip hop culture?
Hahaha, I remember that. I can't remember the song, though. Maybe it does have roots in Hip-Hip. That'd be cool.

[mvprg]

i use it mostly for general knowledge. not as academic resources.

[nola]

ooh thanks, i'm bookmarking wikipedia from now on!

[loserbutt]

So, the other day I'm looking at a wikipedia article, doing research for a paper. I'm looking at an entry on social darwinism... but the wording seemed a bit funny. For instance, it described Darwin as an, "unapologetic white supremacist," which seemed odd. Then I looked at the reference list, clicked on a link, and was led to a site called "biblebelievers.net." This caused great consternation, as I had previously thought the wikipedia to be somewhat reliable.

Then, I can't believe this, I noticed that each entry has a little "edit" button. So I clicked the one by the reference. I saw the link to the biblebelievers site, and deleted it. Lo and behold, when I refreshed the page, the link was gone! I'd completely modified the site!

message: I used to trust wikipedia because of the slick design and because the articles seemed to be good enough.. but it's so easy for any wahoo to put junk into it. Do not use it!

[ism]

Well, wikis are ever-changing, and being public, are prone to defacement. The power of a wiki is also its weakness. If you're relying on it for information, you need to familiarize yourself with how a wiki works. Wikipedia's wiki engine has revision control, which you really should use if you want the facts. Click the History tab and look at every revision (and it also helps to know how diff works so you can view the exact changes). Go back until you find the cleanest version, and if you cite the article, cite the revision you're using. If someone defaced it, admins can roll it back or you can fix it as fast as they ruined it.

[Faithless]

I have to say that ever since our illustrious and illusive >:^| posted this thread, I have grown a skeptical eye of Wikipedia, too.

Thanks, bub! :biggrin:

[asvenus]

thank you >:^|!! the amount of friggin arguments ive had with people and theyre like...well on wikipedia..blah blah..as if i give a shit what some other prat has to say on the matter when i barely give a crap about what their argument is!!
tis ridiculous i tell thee!!

[AliBabaIncorporated]

I actually like Wikipedia. I read it a lot when there's a slow day at work. Learned about all sorts of random stuff using time I otherwise would have wasted entirely. But mainly cuz it's plain and black and white, not filled with a bunch of dumbass coloured backgrounds, so it blends in with the rest of my desktop. So if you're looking at my monitor from across the floor it's not obvious I'm surfing the web.

[BaiginLong]

I think this should be moved to Technology. But yeah I happen to be a fan of Wiki related sites myself.

[Faithless]

I think whoever put in the YW entry got it right!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Yellowworld

Yellowworld.org is a volunteer-driven, not-for-profit community portal dedicated to the cultivation of a collective Asian political and social consciousness. By fostering positive interaction and relationships, we seek to provide a medium in which the distinctions of ethnicity, class and self-interest are buffered by a foundation of trust, responsibility and respect.

Founded in January 2002, it originally began as a community "blog" for Asians on LiveJournal.com, and later officially launched on May 8, 2002 under its own domain. Since then the site has attracted nearly 1,000 members, who have contributed an astonishing 90,000 posts in our forums http://forums.yellowworld.org. The forums, widely considered to be one of the best Asian discussion venues on the net, are led by a moderating group of 15 talented professionals and students -- they are indeed the core of YW and have been instrumental in creating the positive communal atmosphere.

[Michelle101]

because its free and supposedly covers a brrrrroooooaaaaddd area of info. but youre right, theres a lot of things in there thats justs a bunch of bs.

there are even some professors whod automatically fail you if you ever cite it as one of your sources.

too bad my history teachers the opposite. he WORSHIPS the crap site. but then again, hes a loser. birds of a feather...

[LaiSteve66]

Behold Wikipedia, the ultimate PC source of information!

[Flow to Live]

Damn I should have thought of this invention a long time ago, its seems pretty easy to do.

[n3bulous]

I think as long as you understand how it works, the ground rules, etc., then wikipedia is a good starting point when looking cold turkey for information on a particular subject.

The criticisms brought up in this thread are discussed in this (surprise!) wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

i know almost nothing about linux, but i do know it's open source as well. open source, with all its benefits and pitfalls, has seemed to work well for it. why not for an online encyclopedia?

[SunWuKong]

the idea is that it's supposed to be self-policing, so the information should be unbiased. of course there are many flaws to this system.

another thing is that people who edit wiki articles are basically all amateurs - people like you and me, who are not academics at the subjects that they edit. but this is supposed to be solved by the wiki policy that you're not supposed to include original research, that all information have to cite sources. but this depends on the self-policing system.

wiki is good for minor facts and details, and sometimes as a site to find other sources of information, because all articles are supposed to list its sources of information. beyond that, i wouldn't rely soley on what is written in its articles. anything that can depend on opinions at all, or anything that's controversial, you're better off just googling. even then, it's not difficult to find errors in its articles sometimes.

[Azn Retribution]

What's funny is that when compared to so-called respected encyclopedia's.

Wikipedia is more up to date and while it has a few more errors than World Book or Britannica. its not a significant amount (I believe it was like maybe only 20 - 30% more errors than britannica or world book) while both sets were often 1 - 2 years out of date by the time they were published.

and I'd be careful about asserting that most people are amateurs. There are quite a number of professionals, academics and educated people there. The most controversial articles get locked or noted that it is a debated subject and there is a discussion area for this in general.

It has guidelines to try and be unbiased but in this day in age, what isn't unbiased?
It is an essential skill to be able to pick out bias from real data.

but yes. no encyclopedia is meant to be a serious reference anyway. No one would except a britannica or world book reference. Wiki is for info dispersion.

The Wiki 'systeM" is the same system as open source.

Compare a closed edited one to Microsoft
and Wiki to Linux/BSD, etc.

[BeTheReds]

Wikipedia editing is annoying because everyone else thinks they are right when only I am.

[sageb1]

Come on, Google can find a lot of good sources.

[mr. x]

Come on, Google can find a lot of good sources.

yes and Becky's Totally Hindu Page is a wealth of information