Slashdot Mirror
Nitpicking Wikipedia's Vulnerabilities
tiltowait writes "A lot of Wikipedia critics point to hypothetical situations when giving reasons for not valuing the site. Wikipedia even has a 'Replies to common objections' article set up to field these. I'd rather look at some real examples of applying the same level of scrutiny to materials often held up as the Platonic ideal of 'scholarship,' such as peer-reviewed journals, conference papers, established journalism sources, monographs, and print encyclopedias. Even these have disclaimers because they can be can be vandalized or have their reliability and accuracy questioned. As dangerous as it is to trust unverified information, it can be just as bad to make prior judgments discounting information because the source happens to be anonymous. The above examples illustrate that all materials existing along a continuum of valuable information formats. Wikipedia articles can be useful for quickly obtaining factual overviews or as a starting point to further research. But that's just one librarian's opinion. How do tech-savvy people view Wikipedia?"
With firefox.
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
I view it as a great way to waste time at work, mostly.
-Sub
"The problem that I have had with Wikipedia is that in editing articles on which I am a recognized expert, I have had my edits and entries entirely removed by others who "feel" that these edits were somehow inappropriate, even when I referenced those entries along with results from peer reviewed journals."
Wow! That sounds just like another website I frequently visit!
"Derp de derp."
Wikipedia's the second best source of information there is (the first is The Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy, of course).
Note:
Whatever answer you get, you should immediately do some poll elsewhere to find out if you can trust it. A lot of Slashdot critics(*) have pointed to hypothetical situations where comments might not actually be tech-savvy!
(*)"It should be noted that polls on Slashdot, like most on the Internet, are notoriously unreliable."
This is...
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really though, i think the professors have bigger problems if the get stuck in paper bags...
...it's just that mostly morons watch it in the first place.
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter. No, really I would.
What the hell is a list of erotic authors doing on dogluvers.com? Actually, on second thought, I don't want to know.