@Lessbread

I think WP is innovative, but I do not trust its content at face value. I still maintain enough doubt to perform research until I become confident in a thesis, so I'm not trying to say that WP is an end to itself.

Quote:

zyrolasting, how much research into this question have you done?

How can I research a question that explicitly asks for subjective data?

If you were talking about my hesitance for agreeing with the school's policy, know that I have no problem complying with it. I agree with its implied philosophy of researching a variety of sources, but I don't understand the reason for discrediting a source that is (ideally) based on such a philosophy. I do NOT believe WP content should accepted at face value if the neutrality of an article is suspect, but I am advocating WP as a source that encourages the development of knowledge in a way by allowing people to say "No, that's not right" and scratch out mistakes. Citing articles that are written by individual, arguably biased sources may introduce a level of inefficiency considering alternative viewpoints are barred from discussion.

WP is just as suspect to error as anything else, as I've mentioned many times before. I just don't think it makes sense to single it out as "unreliable" (as my school does) when the culprits that share unreliable data can communicate anywhere.

Quote:

Have you noticed the "view history" option at the top of every page? Have you read the various faqs at wikipedia about editing articles? Did you know that a wikipedia account let's an editor set up a watchlist to track changes that others have made to the articles they're interested in?

I indirectly acknowledged the existence of each of these things ITT.

I generally trust articles that have been around a long time, talk about an important or well-known topic, and have received the attention of lots of editors. More precisely, I generally trust that the statements contained in these articles are reliable and that those statements which aren't reliable will be flagged as such. I should add that I also trust myself, after years of reading Wikipedia, to be able to spot statements which aren't reliable and which aren't flagged as such. I feel that I've become pretty good at it.

What I don't generally trust is that everything is being covered that should be covered or that emphasis is most wisely distributed among content in a single article. Because a Wikipedia editor usually edits an article because he likes the topic it's about, this leads to a new sort of intrinsic bias in that the articles tend to gravitate towards that content which is most interesting to the general viewer of Wikipedia, not necessarily that content which is most important to the topic of the article.

This isn't a problem in technical articles but I think is sort of an issue in all other articles.

One of the first pieces of advice one of my graduate advisors gives to students is to always check the information given in a paper. He wasn't talking about Wikipedia articles, but papers in peer reviewed journals. So, I definitely take what I read in Wikipedia with a grain of salt.

I generally trust Wikipedia about as much as a For Dummies book or the History Channel. They tend to be basically accurate, a decent entry point, and any given fact is probably true as far as it goes, but some articles are better than others, the big picture may be incomplete, and don't expect that each aspect has been given its due weight. One thing I find helpful is to look through the talk page and revision history to get an idea of the maturity, stability, and biases in each section.

Although my biases sometimes differ, I find the overall quality decent, and the scope impressive.

That said, a citation includes an author, and for a good reason. Like other said; great starting point, great for noticing crosslinks you didnt realize, but if you are going to believe something by force of authority, do yourself the favor of knowing where that supposed knowledge originated.

I trust it enough to not include it in any kind of academic research.

Quote:

Original post by Way Walker One thing I find helpful is to look through the talk page and revision history to get an idea of the maturity, stability, and biases in each section.

While that's fine, it suffers from one flaw - the most mature, stable and unbiased article might be flat out wrong.

Quote:

One of the first pieces of advice one of my graduate advisors gives to students is to always check the information given in a paper.

Sadly, academia cares little about credibility these days, especially graduate and under. Whole high schools have replaced their materials with wikipedia for teaching material.

Wikipedia is not inherently better or worse, and crowdsourced editing does not factor into quality. But it is not authoritative source. It's akin to writing academic article based on abstracts.

Fortunately it doesn't matter for anything else. The trivial knowledge has no real value nor does any literature give actual understanding of subject matter.

It can also be used to serve as a good filter. For any area one is sufficiently familiar with, wikipedia has huge gaps of topics it doesn't even index, despite being considered fundamental. Anyone relying on wikipedia will be oblivious to existence of those.

For everything else, it's no better or worse than any other encyclopedia - that too is something one would not use in academic setting.

Quote:

Original post by zyrolasting How can I research a question that explicitly asks for subjective data?

Have you never read a history book?

What I wanted to know was whether you investigated how wikipedia works, if you took the time to read any of their guidelines or reviewed their response to the issues you raised or if were you simply shooting from the hip based on scuttlebutt exchanged between you and your buddies.

Quote:

Original post by Talroth Quote: Original post by Sirisian Quote: Original post by Talroth What I would really love to see is an academic version of Wikipedia to be developed. You want to be an editor? Well then you go to your local university or other institution that is part of the project, provide proof that you are actually qualified to comment on the subject material, and then you are given access to edit parts relating to your field of training or research. I really don't see how that would help. All the technical articles that pertain to actual fields of study tend to be correct. Your archery problem seems to be just a disagreement. The nice thing about Wikipedia is that the Talk page can clarify those things or discuss why something isn't included. Also it sounds like from the article that problem was solved. Wikipedia works. You would not imagine how long it took for the "MMO" sections on Wikipedia to get fixed. There was a time when every ignorant kid would list games like Counter Strike as an MMO or something. It got pretty ridiculous. Wikipedia 'works', like the Model T worked at the time. Sure it got the job done, but I don't think I would want to take one across Canada during the winter. We've moved on and developed better and more useful cars.

Holy inappropriately mixed metaphors, Batman!

Quote:

Original post by LessBread Quote: Original post by zyrolasting How can I research a question that explicitly asks for subjective data? Have you never read a history book? What I wanted to know was whether you investigated how wikipedia works, if you took the time to read any of their guidelines or reviewed their response to the issues you raised or if were you simply shooting from the hip based on scuttlebutt exchanged between you and your buddies.

Heheehehe... Butt... Buddies.

I'm super mature.

[Edited by - M2tM on November 23, 2010 8:38:43 PM]

I certainly don't trust Wikipedia as a primary reference for anything. The site is very good for general purpose use, for instance, getting a rough overview on the topic in question. Wiki is especially useful when you are not familiar with terminology - a quick check with Wikipedia allows refinement of search terms.

One problem with Wikipedia is references. Generally references are limited, narrow in scope, and tend to be lazy references that point to some other website with poor quality information. Wiki definitely need references to more reputable texts.

I use it not infrequently to bone up on technical/mathematical/scientific information. They're easy targets since its relatively easy to check for correctness.

I imagine that less-concrete subject matter may require a little more due diligence, so I don't use it as a primary source, but it does usually serve the function of giving a general, high-level overview and pointers to their source material.


That said, I do feel like saying WP is unreliable out of hand is a bit disingenuous -- after all, if you were to ask me what truth is, I would say that the truth, at least in relative terms, is what we agree it to be. So then, how does one judge the reliability of information in that light? Certainly most Wikipedia pages have been read by more numerous and equally, or perhaps moreso, competent individuals over time than certainly most, if not all, published books, articles and what-have-you. So I kind of wonder what it is about dead trees that makes the author more reputable. Perhaps its the smell?