Is Wikipedia a Credible Source?

[Tropicana]

I say no. RichD says yes. Who is right?

[RichD]

When you Google the question "How accurate is Wikipedia?" the highest-ranking result is, as you might expect, a Wikipedia article on the topic ("Reliability of Wikipedia").

That page contains a comprehensive list of studies undertaken to assess the accuracy of the crowd-sourced encyclopedia since its founding 10 years ago. Of course, if you find yourself on this page, you might worry that the list itself may not be trustworthy. Well, the good news is that almost all those studies tell us that it probably is.

In 2005, the peer-reviewed journal Nature asked scientists to compare Wikipedia's scientific articles to those in Encyclopaedia Britannica—"the most scholarly of encyclopedias," according to its own Wiki page. The comparison resulted in a tie; both references contained four serious errors among the 42 articles analyzed by experts.

And last year, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that Wikipedia had the same level of accuracy and depth in its articles about 10 types of cancer as the Physician Data Query, a professionally edited database maintained by the National Cancer Institute.

The self-described "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" has fared similarly well in most other studies comparing its accuracy to conventional encyclopedias, including studies by The Guardian, PC Pro, Library Journal, the Canadian Library Association, and several peer-reviewed academic studies.

Still, because anyone can edit Wikipedia entries, they "can easily be undermined through malice or ignorance," noted BBC technology commentator Bill Thompson. Vandalism of Wiki entries is common in the realm of politics. In 2006, for example, slanderous comments were added to U.S. Sen. Bill Frist's biography page; the IP addresses of the computers used to make the edits traced back to some of his political rivals' staffers. To counter such activity, Wikipedia places editing restrictions on articles that are prone to vandalism.
A Small Study of Our Own
To add to the debate, Life's Little Mysteries carried out its own, albeit small, test of Wikipedia's accuracy by consulting experts from two very different walks of life: theoretical physics and pop music.

Life's Little Mysteries asked Adam Riess, professor of astronomy and physics at Johns Hopkins University and one of the scientists credited with proposing the existence of dark energy , to rate Wikipedia's "dark energy" entry.

"It's remarkably accurate," Riess said. "Certainly better than 95 percent correct."

This is not true, however, of the page about the indie pop band "Passion Pit," according to its drummer, Nate Donmoyer. Donmoyer found 10 factual errors on his band's page ranging from subtle to significant. Some information even appeared to have been added to the page by companies or organizations in search of publicity.

"It's kind of crazy," Donmoyer told LLM. "I don't think I can trust Wikipedia again. The littlest white lies can throw its whole validity off."

It may make sense that Wikipedia would have more reliable articles about academic topics than pop culture ones, considering that the latter are more prone to rumors and hearsay. On the other hand, there's no Passion Pit entry at all in Encyclopaedia Britannica. With more than three million English-language entries, Wikipedia very often wins our preference by default.



http://www.livescience.com/32950-how...wikipedia.html

[Tropicana]

When you Google the question "How accurate is Wikipedia?" the highest-ranking result is, as you might expect, a Wikipedia article on the topic ("Reliability of Wikipedia").

[lonewolf]

I say no. RichD says yes. Who is right?

I regret to inform you once more, that we are in complete agreement. Wikipedia is not a reliable source for information. That does not mean that ALL information from Wikipedia is unreliable. But if all information is not reliable, than the site, on a whole, is unreliable. IMHO

PS Please, don't kill yourself, I don't want blood on my hands.

[lonewolf]

Wikipedia is not considered a credible source. Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from freshman students to professors, as an easily accessible tertiary source for information about anything and everything. However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may be considered unacceptable, because Wikipedia is not considered a credible or authoritative source.^[1][2]
This is especially true considering anyone can edit the information given at any time.Follow two simple rules:
Do your research properly and wisely. Remember that any encyclopedia is a starting point for research, not an ending point.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use

[Tropicana]

I regret to inform you once more, that we are in complete agreement.

[Tropicana]

Wikipedia is not considered a credible source. Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from freshman students to professors, as an easily accessible tertiary source for information about anything and everything. However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may be considered unacceptable, because Wikipedia is not considered a credible or authoritative source.^[1][2]
This is especially true considering anyone can edit the information given at any time.Follow two simple rules:
Do your research properly and wisely. Remember that any encyclopedia is a starting point for research, not an ending point.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use

[Tropicana]

Please note the post right before this. Even Wikipedia says about itself that it is not a reliable source.

Wiki can be very useful for many tings and very reliable (an nuhbadda guh bring up nuh ols paos from yesteryear needah )
Jus now I am looking for the artists real names as 2nite mi need fill out SOCAN sheets fi de crtc an de ppl real name haffi deh pan it.
What I cyaan fibd pan discogs is usually available at wikileaks

If wiki is so lie and unreliable den wah dem a badda snowden fah?

Exactly my point...it can be used as a starting point for Fluffy content but then one needs to dig deeper. BTW. you are mashing up your own thread.

How can anything that anyone on the Internet can edit be reliable. Anyone who wants to can go in there and post mumbo jumbo and it will stay there if no one spots it and removes it. I assure you if university or high school students submitted term papers and used Wikipedia as a source, there is no way that the professors or teachers would accept that as credible. I thought that was obvious to everyone but RichD...and now you.

I notice of late you side with ANYONE who disagrees with me. I wonder why.

[RichD]

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. We have discussed this many times RichD. No need to re-hash. It's use is to be reserved for fluffy content.

so why yuh bodda drag this back up.

[Tropicana]

Because you and Emperah were hijacking another thread to discuss this.

[Emperah]

so why yuh bodda drag this back up.

yuh really hadfi hawx dat

[evanovitch]

I say no. RichD says yes. Who is right?

HELL NO....it is as credible as the individual who tek di time to post his or her opinion pon wat dem post....slant etc all included....

[Tropicana]

A personal opinion is an opinion .... not fact.

[Tuff Gong]

I say no. RichD says yes. Who is right?

Amazing you should question Wikiipedia, when your main source for any one of the many things you harangue about, is the search and rescue of Google.
You have displayed a very shallow knowledge of historical events and even more narrow worldview, informed purely on what you claim to believe in, what you can search for and what limited sections of the Bible say.

Wikepedia, like any other reference should be read as guide to the facts and not as the facts unless verified.

[Tropicana]

Wikipedia is not considered a credible source. Wikipedia is increasingly used by people in the academic community, from freshman students to professors, as an easily accessibletertiary source for information about anything and everything. However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may be considered unacceptable, because Wikipedia is not considered a credible or authoritative source.^[1][2]
This is especially true considering anyone can edit the information given at any time.
Follow two simple rules:
Do your research properly and wisely. Remember that any encyclopedia is a starting point for research, not an ending point.

• An encyclopedia is great for getting a general understanding of a subject before you dive into it. But then you do have to dive into your subject; using books and articles and other appropriate sources will provide better research. Research from these sources will be more detailed, more precise, more carefully reasoned, and more broadly peer reviewed than the summary you found in an encyclopedia. These will be the sources you cite in your paper. There is no need to cite Wikipedia in this case.
• An encyclopedia is great for checking general knowledge that you have forgotten, like the starting date of the First World War or the boiling point of mercury. Citation is not needed for fact checking general knowledge.
• Some details, such as the population of Canada, can be found on Wikipedia, but it is best to verify the information using an authoritative source, such as the CIA World Factbook.
• A very obscure detail, such as the names of the founders of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, might be very hard to find without the aid of an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. Wikipedia is ideal in these situations because it will allow you to find the information, as well as sources which you can research to confirm that information. In any case, you should not cite Wikipedia itself, but the source provided; you should certainly look up the source yourself before citing it. If there is no source cited, consider a different method of obtaining this information.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3AAcademic_usereating an account) with what you have learned. This is a part of how Wikipedia wishes to attain its goals.