Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?

swestcott writes to mention an article at the Chronicle of Higher Education site, wondering if Wikipedia will ever 'make the grade'? Academics are split, and feuding, about how to handle the popular collaborative project. Due to the ease of editing correct information into nonsense, many professors are ignoring it. Others want to start contributing. From the article: "As the encyclopedia's popularity continues to grow, some professors are calling on scholars to contribute articles to Wikipedia, or at least to hone less-than-inspiring entries in the site's vast and growing collection. Those scholars' take is simple: If you can't beat the Wikipedians, join 'em. Proponents of that strategy showed up in force at Wikimania, the annual meeting for Wikipedia contributors, a three-day event held in August at Harvard University. Leaders of Wikipedia said there that they had turned their attention to increasing the accuracy of information on the Web site, announcing several policies intended to prevent editorial vandalism and to improve or erase Wikipedia's least-trusted entries."

Comments

They made the grade some time ago

[jc42]

If "make the grade" actually means anything, it happened when the first "quality" studies were done comparing wikipedia's error rate with assorted encyclopedias and other reference material. The reports were that wikipedia's error rate was either about the same as or slightly better than the others.

The reaction of the wikipedia crowd was mostly to discuss how to improve this situation. Being "no worse than Britannica" wasn't taken as high praise. This is further evidence that wikipedia is doing something right.

Now if they can avoid the tendency of all organizations to bog down in bureaucratic protocols, they might turn into a reference site that's actually good, not just "good enough".

It already has

[QuantumFTL]

Wikipedia is a termendously useful resource - an excellent source of information, and at least a good place to start research into almost any topic. Will it ever replace brittanica? I don't know. But does it need to? Certainly not.

Wikipedia is already performing a vital function in aggregating information and external links on important (and sometimes not-so-important) stuff. It's also a great social experiment.

That being said, I'm still looking forward to Citizendium, which, IMHO, will be more like a real encyclopaedia.

No matter

[The Clockwork Troll]

Whether circles of higher academia ever sanction Wikipedia is largely of concern to academics. The debate over whether Wikipedia is a reliable reference source is misguided; it is like comparing apples and fruit cocktail.

Wikipedia taken as a whole (including the vandalism and nonsense) is as much about zeitgeist as it is accuracy. Uncontroversial topics with exclusively dispassionate editors are likely be to reference quality because the world is not paying attention to them. Contemporary topics mixed up in controversy are more likely to have style and NPOV problems because they reflect that spirit of the times.

Put another way, if I go to Wikipedia and see a vandalized or nonsense article, or one that is clearly biased (stating opinions and perceptions as facts), I know that the topic about which I'm reading is one that some people feel strongly about. That in and of itself is interesting information, separate from the facts that may or may not be there.

Can't Stop A Large Mob

[LGagnon]

My answer to the question is no. Wikipedia's biggest flaw is that the admins simply can not stop a large biased mob of editors trying to keep the article biased. Just look at all the articles related to Ayn Rand. All of them are in some way slanted in favor of Rand and/or her fans because a mob of her fans keep it in perpetual bias. So far, I haven't found one admin who's willing to deal with the problem; all of them have told me that it's too big of a mess for them to handle, or flat out refused to do anything. Knowing that Jimbo is one of Rand's cult followers, I've gotten suspicious of whether or not he's got a hand in this.

As a professor

[selil]

As a professor the primary problems I see with Wikipedia:

1) The content is in flux and what a student sees today may not be the same tomorrow.

2) Wikipedia makes a good resource to find other resources.

3) I don't allow any web based content to be a primary resource (stand alone), nor am I interested in seeing papers based on encyclopedias (only) either.

4) My limited forays into Wikipedia left a poor taste I'm not interested in dealing with the general social software scene nor turning over peer reviewed research to have it edited by who knows who.

Speaking of academics

[silkstorm]

My wife, a professor at a local community college, has used Wikipedia a few times to quickly gather sources on a topic she's not too familiar with. Then, she'll use the article to sort out primary and secondary sources if there cited in Wikipedia. She never actually relies on the entries *themselves*. During her work on her Masters Degree, she took a class on Historiography. By studying how History is written, not just what is true and false, she learned a lot about how to tell the difference between well thought out writing, and poor writing [in text books, in others thesis, etc...] and the importance of citing *primary* sources in those entries, and not to rely on secondary sources unless they are known to be trustworthy, or primary sources aren't available anymore (destroyed, stolen, etc.). Wikipedia articles should never be used as a primary or secondary source in the academic world, as I can guarantee if one of her students cites Wikipedia entries in a bibliography on a paper, she will probably laugh and that student will need to work harder finding better sources on the next paper.