Wikipedia - How/when do you trust it?

I am using wikipedia quiet often, just to get a quick explanation of sth.. if I need more detailed information, I may not trust it, rather searchin for the info on another site.... I like how much info wiki got about music/artist/albums though.
 
[offtopic]This reminds me of the case of the Sony employee saying on Wiki's Halo 3 page that "the graphics won't be any better". Then they found out who he was via his IP adress and embarassed the entire corporation.[/offtopic]

ungulateman
 
Wikipedia is great for general, non-controversial stuff. The controversial articles are sometimes not NPOV though (tbh, it's hard to find articles anywhere about this stuff which has a NPOV). Any misinformation or trolling is easily spotted. The citations in the articles are very useful to find individual sources where the info originated from.
Oh the whole, wikipedia is awesome and the critics can suck it.
 
Carl said:
Wikipedia is a great starting point for any topic you need to know something more about. Usually the major facts are correct and if they aren't, the article at least brought your attention to something to verify or research further which can get the ball rolling for whatever information you were looking for in the first place. It's very useful to be able to find the gist of virtually any topic on one site. Then you know what to look for in terms of real sources.
Click to expand...

I'll have to side with Carl on this point. Wikipedia is pretty good as a search engine of sorts. Some of the articles are of course better than others (the ones about religion, for example, tend to be detailed with many sources).

Stephen Colbert once pointed out on the Colbert Report that the article on the light saber was longer than the one on the printing press. I checked soon after, and found out he wasn't kidding. Wikipedia editors are all nerds like us!

:jump:
 
I've been in several arguments (what a surprise..) and when people ask for proof, I generally just go to google and type in what I need proof for. The wikipedia article is generally one of the first usable results. I show them the wikipedia article and get the ever so common, "You can't use wikipedia as a source..anybody can change it." So then I just click the little number and go to the referenced site. It is pretty annoying how many people are so against wikipedia. Almost all of their articles have exceedingly great references.
 
Shinryu said:
I know this is a bit off-topic, but why are encyclopedias not allowed as a source by most places? I mean, I've personally never tried using one, but I am rather curious as to the reasoning behind it. Seems stupid to me, as encyclopedias are basically big old books with facts/knowledge in them, aren't they?
Click to expand...

Encyclopedias, in general, tend to be tertiary sources of information, (they use primary sources and secondary sources as their evidence). It's usually preferred to have primary sources, and secondary sources are generally expected to at least be very close to the original material. Basically, the encyclopedia isn't a source you're supposed to use because they're not the original information, instead they're just a compilation of other stuff. I'm not exactly 100% that I explained that right, but I think it's at least the general gist of it.
 
Wikipedia is an excellent source if you need to know all info about some video-game or something but it sucks if you need a good article about some good philosopher or about anything that requires more than 120 IQ.
 
Hey kids, if you want to succeed in high school here's how you should do it:

Go to the appropriate wikipedia page. Find the information that you want, find the source that is cited for that information. Check out the source and use that source and claim that it's your research.

Seriously, I got fantastic grades throughout highschool and from 2005 - 2007 all I ever did with projects was use wikipedia, I didn't get caught for plagiarism or anything. I mean, if I did this now in university I'd probably be kicked out the door within ten seconds.

I used to spend a lot of time on wikipedia and I was an admin at one point but it got boring, fast. Instead of learning, writing and editing interesting articles I was reverting vandalism, talking with anal retentive autistic admins and lots of boring bureaucratic crap.

Wikipedia is definitely quite accurate, however here are some pages that I really think are stupid or funny:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Dong_Silver (I always wanted to somehow delete this but never could)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Virgin_Killer.jpg (Tried to get this deleted but for some reason child porn is acceptable on wiki)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cyde/Weird_pictures (what is this i dont even)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths (I lol'd)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_articles (very funny)
 
If you want to use Wikipedia's sources as your sources, you need to have actually read those sources to verify they are what you want (and to have them actually be your source). You're "not allowed" to just say "OK, these are Wikipedia's sources, therefore they are my sources because I read Wikipedia.".

I believe the internet is quite possibly man's greatest invention (definitely the greatest in modern times), and Wikipedia is the greatest thing to come out of the internet.
 
Obi said:
If you want to use Wikipedia's sources as your sources, you need to have actually read those sources to verify they are what you want (and to have them actually be your source). You're "not allowed" to just say "OK, these are Wikipedia's sources, therefore they are my sources because I read Wikipedia.".

I believe the internet is quite possibly man's greatest invention (definitely the greatest in modern times), and Wikipedia is the greatest thing to come out of the internet.
Click to expand...

Of course, but Wikipedia often provides you with the citation that you need at the time instead of looking for evidence for something that you already know to be true.

I enjoy wikipedia a lot but sometimes the users treat it like myspace or everything2 and they get into revert wars and many wikipedians have stalker like behavior.

People seem to forget that it is a collaborate project to BUILD AN ENCYCLOPEDIA not a website to socialize.

A bit off topic, but has anyone ever played wiki ladders?

1. Go to wikipedia and open up two tabs of "random article" and then try to get from one article to the other.

It's interesting how close some topics are.
 
As of recent, I've used Wikipedia more than enough times to help get info for my project, and am starting too wonder if not all of what it says is true.
 
When I'm looking up something for a project or term paper, I check out other sources first. It's mainly because I have to get used to not relying on Wikipedia so much, although the only unreliable information I get there is when I'm just looking up video games there. However, nobody even bothers to edit the things I need to know about history or something due to how complicated and boring it is to them, and as a result I'm in the middle. I trust it enough, but it's not always a reliable source of information.
 
If you use Wikipedia for video games, I'd think twice. It's one of the few subjects I don't trust Wiki on. There are far too many fanchildren of various companies when it comes to that industry. They usually use rumours as "sources" and I don't think wiki admins really frequent those pages. Always, ALWAYS follow the sources on those articles.
 
Most of the time I find it as a reliable source, however, as Firestorm and JJFun stated, there are some pages usually ignored by moderators. For some reason, they seem to think there are some pages where the content isnt worth checking, still, I like to go there if I have some kind of way to check if the info is real or not(mainly libraries)
 
It depends. If it sounds like the user knows what he or she is doing, its generally better to rely on it. My teacher says two ways to check if the article is good is to check if they have several referrences, so you know they didn't get it out of their head, or cross reference it yourself with other sites.
 
yeah

just goes to show how people view wikipedia as fact/truth.
thought this was a fitting article that just popped up today.
its amazing how many people take wikipedia for truth.
 
What i find funny from that story, as that everyone in this topic seems to know how to use Wikipedia correctly, yet the people who tell us to never trust it use it without checking for sources. Maybe the news media would be best to take their own advice and not rely on wikipedia.
 
Most of the time, I use Wikipedia as just a source if I'm searching for general information. However, If I'm doing a research paper or something of that nature, I would use an outside source.
 
I always check other sites before Wikipedia, it is often trustworthy, but there are generally better sites than it for the information you are searching for.
 
I use wikipedia only if its for information not class related. If there's anything I'm curious about, I go there. However, if the information is for a school report, I don't typically use it.
 
Well I wouldn't trust it for anything academic, but for general knowledge for most purposes it's okay. Check if the information is sourced (click the little numbers next to the desired information) and there is usually a link or reference to a text you can double-check the credibility of yourself. Generally a good idea to reference that book/article/page rather then wikipedia itself, though.
 
Ok, it seems everyone knows how to use wikipedia.

Does anyone have any questions on about how it works behind the scenes or anything? I do know quite a bit :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top