Experts Rate Wikipedia Higher Than Non-Experts

Grooves writes "A new Wikipedia study suggests that when experts and non-experts look to assess Wikipedia for accuracy, the non-experts are harder on the free encyclopedia than the experts. The researcher had 55 graduate students and research assistants examine one Wikipedia article apiece for accuracy, some in fields they were familiar with and some not. Those in the expert group ranked their articles as generally credible, higher than those evaluated by the non-experts. One researcher said 'It may be the case that non-experts are more cynical about information outside of their field and the difference comes from a natural reaction to rate unfamiliar articles as being less credible.'" That's the problem people face when 'everyone who disagrees with you is a moron'.

Comments

Re:Peer reviewed

[OctaviusIII]

Problems still arise with bias, but generally they arise in some of the less travelled articles where individuals can cut what they don't like. For example, the article on the Laurentian Leadership Centre, where I happen to be right now, was expanded upon by one of the students. Another editor simply didn't like the host school and cut it back considerably (although it looks like the proper edits are back), censoring what he didn't like and creating a bias. It's like the plagiarism thing a while back - quality decreases when traffic decreases, but that's the nature of a Wiki project, I suppose.