Does Wikipedia tell the truth or lies

ILLYRIAN

ILLYRIAN

Druish Pervonian Wizard
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Black Thorn
I'm writing a book at present about Moondyne Joe so I thought I'd have a look at what Wikipedia has got.
I was impressed at how much they got wrong, then they want to verify the corrections. Are they intentionally stupid or what?

What have you found?
 
I thought anyone could write a wiki page, that's why it wasn't an accepted reference when I was at college. Most of what's written there is biased towards the author of the page, it's not a true account of anything, but a subjective opinion. That's what I thought about it anyway, easy to have a quick look at if you're not interested in the facts but not a website you use if you want the truth of anything, kinda like reading the tabloid papers really.
 
BuffyElevated
BuffyElevated
[No message]
One good (if sometimes annoying) thing about the Internet is that there are always obsessive know-it-alls out there waiting to swoop in and correct every little mistake made by others. Wikipedia kind of relies on that, and in most cases articles will get crowd-sourced into accuracy over time. Some more obscure topics may get left with a lot of mistakes, though, if there aren't enough people waiting in the wings to fix them.
 
nightshade said:
I thought anyone could write a wiki page, that's why it wasn't an accepted reference when I was at college. Most of what's written there is biased towards the author of the page, it's not a true account of anything, but a subjective opinion. That's what I thought about it anyway, easy to have a quick look at if you're not interested in the facts but not a website you use if you want the truth of anything, kinda like reading the tabloid papers really.
Click to expand...

Pretty much this. I think you can change things that are incorrect that you find, but for the most part you shouldn't put too much weight on Wiki anything without other reliable sources. I have used it as a fact-filler, but only after checking out the information thoroughly. Definitely not a site you would want to cite as a source in a paper.
 
Well, I'm sure lots of what's on Wikipedia is true, but there's certainly a lot of garbage, because anybody can add stuff. A friend of mine edited the Wikipedia page about dinosaurs and wrote that they built their houses using their own feces 😀 It was quickly corrected, but I'm sure if it had been a less popular Wikipedia article and had the alterations been more subtle, it would have taken quite some time for somebody to fix it.

Watch this, it's pretty interesting and funny (skip to 1:38 for the important part):
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzSMC5rWvos[/ame]
 
I think wiki gets too much smack. I've been using it for years in the topics of science and the info I have found on there has always been accurate. I never ever use it as a reference though, instead I go back to the original references and articles and read those (a good wiki page has good references). But wiki is good when it comes to getting familiar with the topic in a general way before doing an actual research. To be fair, I never use webpages as a source anyway, because any webpage can have mistakes, not just wiki. I always site primary sources which is what those webpages are based on anyway.

I can see though how obscure topics on wikipedia have a lot of mistakes. But the bigger topics are usually corrected very quickly if someone tries to write crap.
 
PassionBecoming
PassionBecoming
[No message]
R
Robb Stark
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brinkster130
brinkster130
[No message]
If there's no reference then I tend not to trust, or I would do additional googling to double check wiki stuff
 
Blaze,
I think wiki gets to much smack,

What! They take drugs as well?
 
Yeah well, my only excuse is I've been reading too much wikipedia of late.
 
Blaze
Blaze
It's a cover up conspiracy
It really does depend on the topic you're looking at. You're pretty sate with the sciences and also stuff about tv shows and some pop culture.

Not so much about history or politics, there are downright lies in those areas. And everytime somebody corrects them, somebody else 'fixes' them right back.🙄

My advice 'trust but verify' 🙂
 
The quality depends on the subject. I have my degrees in Philosophy, and I would never recommend the wikipedia articles on any philosopher or philosophy concept. You get an absolute bare-bones explanation of these things. All of the interesting and profound dimensions of a philosopher or concept are always absent. (And to really add those things would make the article way to long. No one would be willing to do it, and furthermore no one truly qualified would ever do it). As an example, hundred's of books have been devoted to Hegel's dialectic. I took a three hour, twice a week, semester long graduate seminar on that topic, and only after that class (and many hours of private study) could I finally say that I understood it in any significant way. The wikipedia article on this topic is a rude one page long. It tells the reader so little that he/she is actually better off not reading it at all. You can't simplify some things that much. To simplify Hegel's dialectic to a mere page would require such vague generalizations and omissions that what you would be left with would actually just be wrong.

I use Philosophy as an example because that is what I am most familiar with. I'm sure other subjects suffer in a similar way on wikipedia. But on the other hand, it's much more dependable when I need to look up information on a television show. So to me it depends on what subject you are using it for.
 
Joan the Vampire Slayer said:
Wikipedia is not a reliable source of information, period.
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To get back to the point I was trying to make, it is certainly not a reliable source, but it is a good resource nonetheless. Wikipedia is a great tool if someone knows how to use it.
 
Illyrian, Wikipedia has sometimes a bit of both reality and nonesense! I would take it with a grain of salt- it often is way too political and way too leftist for my taste, but sometimes, in a pinch, it can be a good source of info for where to search- and what to verify.
 
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