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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'.
Wikipedia is used all the time in the IP lawfirm where I work. If we need a definition or a quick rundown on a field before filing a patent, it's a good, well linked source.
science is a religion
... that when it comes to academic articles (e.g. physics) the only people who know enough math/jargon to get it close to right are the academics. So, the acuracy is of course going to be fairly high.
BUT, when it comes to policitically charged articles (or other non-academic articles), b/c of people's "MY true is reality no matter what the facts say" mentality nowadays, the acuracy plumits.
Basically, this study is nothing but a false positive in favor of wikipedia.
Isn't this the same criteria used for "well-respected, peer-reviewed journals"? You can abuse any such journal, just as wikipedia sometimes is.
However, wikipedia is different from such journals because it is a commons which is shared by people with differing viewpoints. It doesn't get the same bias that some journals may get where submitters and readers gravitate towards one of several different publications with slightly different biases (e.g. some journals favor publishing articles related to global warming as a concequence of human activities while others favor articles about it being a more natural phenomonon).
Debate is healthy, as long as it is reasoned. Wikipedia's nature enforces reason on debates about its contents. If a wikipedia entry gets edited by a person with a bias, a person with an opposing bias deals with it directly by editing the _same_ article, instead of proposing an alternate view somewhere else where it may not be seen by readers of the article. This beats the status quo , where oposing sides tend to just keep shouting their message without having any true debate.
science is a religion
The expert says "there are some good ideas behind this really shitty writing", and the non-expert says "wow, this is some really shitty writing." So the expert comes away with a higher opinion.
I'm pretty agnostic on the whole Global Warming debate, but it bothers me that the people who are so opposed to it argue on what they believe to be true, rather than what they think to be true. That is what you have done here. You've offered no substantial evidence to support your conclusions, rather you simply imply that all those opposed to your belief are morons.
So why are you so surprised when you are called delusional? You certainly don't offer anything to counter that impression.
"Caution--and further research--needs to be used before citing anything learned from Wikipedia as a fact."
Yes, well, caution--and further research--needs to be used before citing anything learned from the Encyclopaedia Britannica... or the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics... or the World Almanac as a fact.
All of these are secondary sources. All of them are highly useful and are used as actionable sources of information every day, but none of them would be an acceptable citation in a research paper.
Furthermore, Wikipedia has always had policies that all information in Wikipedia must be derived from a published "reliable source" and that the source should be cited. Although these policies have mostly been honored in the breach, in the past year or so there has been an increasing tendency to cite sources explicitly. This is virtually a requirement for an article to become a home-page "featured article," for example. In some cases it is easier to trace the source of a fact in a Wikipedia article than in a traditional encyclopedia.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
But that's why this experiment's results are so interesting. What you're saying reminds me of how people look at mainstream media's coverage of things. It appears somewhat reasonable when they're talking about things you don't really understand, but then once they get onto a topic you know anything about, suddenly you see how full of shit they are. Your ignorance allows you to trust them, and your expertise makes you distrust them.
This study perversely suggests that Wikipedia is having an opposite effect on people, than mainstream media does.
I wonder if it has to do with what happens when people find errors in things they're familiar with. When you find errors in Wikipedia articles, do you do anything about it? With mainstream media, you can't do anything about it, but with Wikipedia, you can. Maybe you don't correct errors, but eventually someone may, and perhaps the motivation to do that, is somehow proportional to expertise.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
There are regular stories on Wikipedia on Slashdot, and occasional stories on other wikis. Shouldn't there be either a Wikipedia icon or a Wiki icon to distinguish these stories? The Wikipedia "multilingual globe being built" is copyright (one of the very few things in Wikipedia which is) so you can't use that, but the Wikipedia "W" is fairly well known. Looking through Wikimedia Commons, this puzzle piece looked good to me. I don't know if the GFDL licence would be a problem for Slashdot.
The MediaWiki sunflower would only be suitable as an icon for Wikis powered by that piece of software. I don't have an idea for an icon to represent all wikis.
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: HELL, Yes.
When you read Mein Kampf, you realise a) exactly how out to lunch, sick & twisted Hitler really was, and b) how out to lunch Chamberlain & the other European politicos were to even TRY to negociate with him.