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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?"
I personally love wikipedia. Yes, Im aware that it CAN be wrong, but Ive not had any problems with it so far. (That I know of)
Compare wikipedia to something along similar lines, but more "professional". Such as the encyclopedia britannica. Wikipedia can be wrong, sure. But so can the encyclopedia britannica. And wikipedia is more likely to be up to date with current events.
The encyclopedia britannica most likely wont have its page on Time Cubism or Scientology graffitid. But then, does it even have those pages?
You get what you want from it. Youd be an idiot to 100% believe everything in it, but then Id argue the same holds true for anything. Always double check your facts- hell, triple check - if its important. Otherwise, for people like me who don't write scientific papers for a living, it does the job fine.
Its just a convenient place to start research, or get some quick facts. Its easily and readily accessible, and for the most part its pretty accurate. I wouldn't base any full fledged research paper off of facts derived from it since there is that chance it may not be correct. I agree with a previous post that sometimes there are articles where people's bias can come in and twist facts or emphasize certain things more than others. And in a way, I think that can be helpful and help educate people on not only the facts, but also things that surround the facts that are deeper. On the talk pages that accompany the regular pages, this type of discussion and 'arguing' sometimes occurs and it can often times be helpful to resolve disputes about an article as well as expose people to other views and the reasons behind those views. So basically you have to take wikipedia with a grain of salt. Its really interesting and amazing to see what an open source community can contribute.
~Hergio