Jimmy Wales Says Students 'Should Use' Wikipedia

An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has up an article chatting with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Wales views the Wikipedia site as an educational resource, and apparently thinks teachers who downplay the site are 'bad educators'. '[A] perceived lack of authority ... has drawn criticism from other information sources. Ian Allgar of Encyclopedia Britannica maintains that, with 239 years of history and rigorous fact-checking procedures, Britannica should remain a leader in authoritative, politically-neutral information. Mr Allgar pointed out the trustworthy nature of paid-for, thoroughly-reviewed content, and noted that Wikipedia is still prone to vandalism.'"

Comments

Institutions

[Seumas]

Remember, educational institutions depend on a perception of sub-par education when it's acquired through any means other than them and their material. Not entirely unlike the RIAA and the DRM infatuation. If it's not learned through their facilities and one of their "trained educators", it can't possibly be real knowledge!

Re:Institutions

[Entropius]

I've had professors (PhD program in physics) say that they look stuff up on Wikipedia.

All the grad students look stuff up on it. There are lots of pretty scholarly physics articles on Wikipedia, and it's a good place to go when you need to look something up or get guidance on a fundamental topic.

Of course, in physics, you're supposed to think about anything you read and confirm that it makes sense before you repeat it or believe it. This really should be true in all fields, but for some reason it's beaten into physicists' heads more than some others, I think.

Wikipedia is never the final authority on anything, but it's a good starting point. If you can't remember which one of Maxwell's equations has the minus sign, it's a quicker place than most (unless you have your copy of Jackson at hand.)

Re:Institutions

[andruk]

Oh yeah? So how did quantum physics come about? You call that "making sense"? ;-)

But, yeah, as a physics undergrad, the Wikibooks come in very handy when the text book you *paid* for ends up not being able to describe some of the basic principles. Everything Feynman had a hand in producing also explains things extremely well.

Re:Institutions

[Entropius]

As someone who tutors undergrads, I concur: a lot of the texts suck. :)

And, yes, while the Feynman Lectures were intended for undergrads, a whole lot of people use them to study for PhD quals.

Quantum physics makes a great deal of sense in the only way that physical theories can: it explains our observations, to an uncanny level. *Why* it should be this way we don't really know. Quantum mechanics really isn't terribly counterintuitive; it's just *different* than the rules that govern large collections of matter. Those rules -- macroscopic mechanics, classical electromagnetism, and so on -- are just what happens when you look at the limit of quantum mechanics when a great many particles act together.

Re:Institutions

[mustpax]

Wikipedia Natural Science/Math articles are very useful. They really are the best place to start most of the time (so long as you don't end your "research" there).

Humanities are much trickier however. There are many more pitfalls when, say, paraphrasing Heidegger's definition of "Being." It is much easier to verify that a mathematical derivation follows the same steps as a cited source. So Wikipedia editors' reliance on primary sources can't always be taken at face value. For more obscure articles, key alternative interpretations can be missing as well. Incompleteness is Incorrectness' evil twin.

I'm not saying Wikipedia is useless outside the hard sciences. Just keep in mind that other disciplines are not always so lucky.

Re:Institutions

[nugneant]

I think the big difference between Wikipedia and a textbook is that a textbook is professional-quality writing. Kids these days are struggling enough as it is with writing (take a quick trip around the web in case you forgot to agree with me there :)), they need all the "examples via osmosis" that they can get.

Re:Institutions

[jacquesm]

there are plenty of textbooks out there that only exist because the prof wants to be able to make you buy them to supplment their income. They might as well be blank pages and as far as the content is considered you would be no worse off if they were. It would be a good rule if professors were not able to make you buy their own textbook for a course.

Re:Institutions

[mstahl]

I'm not really sure there's any debate about the accuracy of math and physics articles in Wikipedia, because there's really not much motivation to edit those articles unless you know what you're doing. I've had similar experiences with the computer science and computer engineering areas in wikipedia. They're all very accurate and for the most part well-written, too. The ones everyone keeps complaining about are the ones that constantly get vandalized or are trolled frequently by bored teenagers.

Re:Institutions

[PopeRatzo]

It's really not that hard to spot vandalism on Wikipedia. When you look up a public figure and it says he's had sex with goats, it's a pretty good bet that there's been some vandalism.

Unless he's a Republican politician from the Christian Right, in which case all bets are off.

[See, I was just kidding there. It's a Saturday, after all, and I'm drinkin' early.]

Re:Institutions

[Gloy]

Incompleteness is Incorrectness' evil twin. While true, even the largest collection of knowledge is an almost infinitesimally small sample of everything that is out there, and no general reference work can ever expect to be anywhere near "complete". If it came down to it, I'd have to say that incorrectness is by far the worst of the two.

Re:Institutions

[$hecky]

I hear this line frequently, and I never really understood it. Nobody ever got rich writing textbooks. I don't think anyone ever bought dinner at a nice restaurant by writing textbooks.

If your prof has you buying his book, it's because he thinks it's the best book for the course. He might or might not be right about that, but he's not listing his book because his seven-cents-a-copy royalties are tipping the balance (and especially since the first few hundred dollars of those royalties -- if the book actually makes that much -- go to paying indexing costs, etc.)

Re:Institutions

[Beetle B.]

In my undergrad, if a teacher assigned his own textbook for the course, he was required to donate the amount he would get in royalties (from that class).

Re:Institutions

[nerdyalien]

I think the statement "stop citing from wikipedia" should be changed to "stop citing 'developing stories' from wikipedia".

I see many of the articles in wikipedia are related to current event (can be anything from political, controversies, scandals, religious matters etc) and it keeps on developing every hour. So those articles aren't the best things to refer at all costs. Other than that, things from the past and articles relates to science/technology are quite accurate, I must say.

Its not a matter of asking "whether wikipedia is trustable". Its a matter of asking "whether humans are trustable". Okay... only recently, Pluto was kicked out of the solar system. But still, any school kid can refer to a 2002 Britanica and say "Pluto" is a planet and its the 9th in our solar system. And this is not the first time 'we', human kind, mistakenly understood things. If you look at medical bioscience branch, they define different things differentley in different times (e.g. blood clotting... that mechanism had been re-interpretet few times over the known history).

As a scholar, what I find it really hard is, catching up a theory or something from a very concise description. Most books explaining it in few pages, but actually what they does is, playing with words, you don't get the exact facts or the core stuff). I find wikipedia has this incredible capability of concisely describing stuff.

Other thing is.. most of the time.. we hear many things through many people and experiences... you know it is correct.. but no reference to cite. So read the books.. it was a great experience to read Google Books last time to find a proper reference, since recently, collection of open-books are limited, so.. go to library and flip pages.. naah.. we are in 21st century, why do that. So.. internet.. wikipedia....ORRR just stuck with books.. read till you find what's in your head.

Re:Institutions

[Beetle B.]

Some years ago, I looked up the page on the electron. On the table on the side, it listed its mass at about 9.11E-30. That's off by a factor of 10. I checked the history. It had been that way for a relatively long time (at least days, but I think it was a few weeks). I corrected that one.

Even worse, the article on Gibb's Phenomenon states:

The overshoot is a consequence of trying to approximate a discontinuous function with a partial (i.e. finite) sum of continuous functions. A finite sum of continuous functions is, by definition, continuous, and therefore cannot approximate the discontinuity (and the area "near" it) to within any arbitrarily chosen accuracy. An infinite sum of continuous functions can be discontinuous, and hence, does not exhibit the Gibbs phenomenon. Which is just wrong. A square wave (the example on the page) exhibits Gibb's Phenomenon even if you take the infinite sum. A true square wave simply cannot be represented as a Fourier series at all points.

I'll probably fix that one some day. Not in the mood to get into an edit war right now (apparently someone before me tried).

(Not saying any other place is better - I've found an occasional grave "error" in Mathworld as well).

Re:Institutions

[nuzak]

> It's really not that hard to spot vandalism on Wikipedia

Sure, if the article is about any topic that's remotely controversial, you can assume by default it's been vandalized. Or at least riddled with crappy weasel-worded assertions everywhere.

Wikipedia's a decent resource for sciences I expect geeks afflicted with terminal Male Answer Syndrome to actually know about. Everything else is a crapshoot, minus the shoot.

Re:Institutions

[ceoyoyo]

Sure you would. If the pages were blank the professor would have nothing to copy onto the board during "lectures."

Re:Institutions

[Entropius]

Gibbs' phenomenon is an interesting case. In the limit as the number of terms in the Fourier series goes to infinity, the *region* in which Gibbs' phenomenon takes place gets arbitrarily small, but the actual *amount* of the overshoot at the edge doesn't. So in the actual infinite limit, you've got a finite-sized error at the discontinuity happening over an infinitesimal range. Whether this "counts" as an error (since the integrated error over all points is zero; it's not like a Dirac delta) depends on your discipline, I think.

In physics (and I imagine engineering, etc.) we tend to ignore stuff like this, since "true square waves" don't really exist.

Mathematicians are all from another planet anyway, so who knows how they describe this.

Re:Institutions

[cephalien]

As an immunologist, I've been known to go to wikipedia for a quick refresher of some of the more complicated bits and pieces I need to know -- there's just too much behind it to remember it all 24/7.

As I argue elsewhere however, there's a vast difference between using it as a quick reminder or a jumping-off point, and relying on it for the entire content of a topic. Until the average undergraduate is capable of making that distinction, wikipedia should never be considered a valid research tool -- regardless of what Mr. Wales (who undoubtedly has a /huge/ amount of teaching experience) may think.

Re:Institutions

[Entropius]

My grandfather's next door neighbor, actually, is a professional textbook writer (for elementary school, however). She does *quite* well for herself.

I imagine actual *good* books (you know, those legendary books that are known only by the author's name: Jackson, Goldstein, Griffiths, Sakurai, in physics; Piston in music theory) make their authors money.

The problem here is egotistical professors making you use their book because they have inflated ideas about how good it is. Those classes tend to be bad not because you've got a prof trying to make money, but because you have a prof centering the class on what he's done and what he thinks.

Re:Institutions

[Beetle B.]

More precisely, in the infinite limit, the error is confined to a set of measure zero. The "overshoot", though, remains there in the infinite limit. People will get the wrong idea from the article. Someone questioned this earlier - here's what it says in the Talk page:

Doesn't the overshoot remain (though with zero width) in the infinite limit? If so, then the arguments in the second paragraph should be changed since they are false.74.98.54.54 19:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

        No the overshoot does not exist at all in that case. "An infinite sum of continuous functions can be discontinuous" is correctly stated. Cuddlyable3 10:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC) As I said, I'll probably fix it one day. The reason I haven't is that a Google search repeats this claim all over, and few Google hits actually state that the overshoot remains in the limit. So I keep telling myself I'll find my textbook and just copy the proof verbatim.

Incidentally, and I may be wrong on this, I don't think you can ever get a discontinuous function from sines and cosines - even in an infinite limit. Maybe other continuous functions can do it, though.

Re:Institutions

[Planesdragon]

Quantum physics makes a great deal of sense in the only way that physical theories can: it explains our observations, to an uncanny level. Which is why it's held as something that doesn't make sense -- because undergrads take a QM course, realize that it doesn't make sense from an absolute perspective, and decide that it's supposed to be that crazy.

Re:Institutions

[Entropius]

You're right, of course. But...

Until the average undergraduate is capable of making that distinction

If you're not capable of making that decision, you shouldn't be an undergraduate.

Shouldn't we demand some basic critical thinking skills from our undergrads at all?

Re:Institutions

[sumdumass]

Why would you limit things to republicans? Or have you been reading wikipedia too long and think they are the only kinki people out there. Because there are all sorts of stories about the democrats too, Like Barney Frank having a Teen prostitution ring operating out of his house, Or Ted Kennedy's fascination with Speed and women. You know, they say he had to have been doing at least 90 MPH when he hit the water, it would take that much force to blow the panties off the girl that drowned and put them in the glove box.

so maybe the fact that Wiki has secrete admins charging the editing and different biases on the site could be both a reason you think republicans are the only deviant politicians and that schools don't want students referencing it.

Re:Institutions

[rizzo320]

Wikipedia can be a good resource for any student of any age. It's an encyclopedia, which means its a condensed article with general knowledge of a topic, with information from other sources. If a teacher allows a student of any age to write a paper and use an encyclopedia as a reference (if the work needs references), then the teacher doesn't know what they are doing.

Why wikipedia is an excellent resource is the requirement for articles to have some type of references listed for accuracy and peer review. I've seen more references to other books and articles on Wikipedia than I have in printed or online encyclopedias (such as World Book, Britannica, etc). The immense amount of references alone gives students a great place to start their research.

Re:Institutions

[SlowMovingTarget]

Hmmm... I think I'd want Wheeler to use his own book if I were studying gravitation with him. But that's just me.

Re:Institutions

[jacquesm]

to every rule there are probably exceptions. I'm more thinking of the 'university vanity press' that produces relatively small runs of very pricey text books that get to be 'proscribed reading' for the students. Whether it's for ego or for profit is debatable, but it's a pretty bad practice in either case.

Re:Institutions

[blitziod]

actually all forms of media include lies and bias...the pros are just better at hiding/covering up than wiki

Re:Institutions

[The One and Only]

I'm not sure why a university press would publish books and then ban the students from reading them. Maybe you could explain what you meant, or educate yourself on the meaning of words like "proscribed" BEFORE you try using them.

Re:Institutions

[susano_otter]

Remember, educational institutions depend on a perception of sub-par education when it's acquired through any means other than them and their material.

That certainly explains why my teachers keep giving me research projects where I have to go out and find my own sources of information, study them on my own, and come to my own conclusions about them, instead of just educating me themselves.

Oh, wait. No it doesn't.

Re:Institutions

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a mis-spelling of it, jackass.

Re:Institutions

[sumdumass]

Well, there are way of say X happened and A,B,and C were part of it without making it appear good or bad. What the Bias seems to do is is either say X happened and it was good or bad and it attempts to neglect A, B, or C depending on the good or bad they are attempting to represent in X.

Not all media does that. Encyclopedias should refrain the most from it. It is a reference of facts not an opinion piece in the Sunday times. Your perception of X being good or bad has no relevance to X happening in the past. Chances are, the perceptions of good or bad will change over time too. This is another reason it shouldn't be there. For instance, the bombing of japan with nukes was originally a good thing because it saved allied lives in what was sure to have been a costly invasion of Japan. 20 years later, we know how bad Nuclear bombs were and have a sense of how many innocent people lost their lives and it is a bad thing, so bad that it is doubtful that anything like it would be repeated in the future.

Re:Institutions

[GwaihirBW]

Until the average undergraduate is capable of making that distinction

If you're not capable of making that decision, you shouldn't be an undergraduate.

Not quite - an educated populace is one of the most important defenses against Bad Things, especially in a democracy . . . so if you lack critical thinking skills, you should not be allowed to graduate until you acquire them, but you should be an undergrad if you stand a chance of doing so (although it's lamentable that you managed to go through secondary education without picking up such basic skills). We need to impart those skills to as many people as possible, in whatever environments we've got, late if necessary.
Teaching students *how* to use Wikipedia (&c) would be a decent step in that direction, and would be wonderful if it could reliably and successfully be integrated into high school curricula nationally (but I have no confidence that it would do anything but cause further problems . . . there are many other baby steps to be taken before we're ready for that).

Re:Institutions

[Risen888]

incorrectness is by far the worst of the two.

In that spirit, I feel compelled to mention that the proper phrasing there is "worse of the two." :)

Re:Institutions

[jacquesm]

my apologies, oh one and only, I meant prescribed. It's just that this is

1) not my first language and
2) it was late.

Re:Institutions

[jythie]

Except when some random admin desices some bit of physics they have never personally heard of (or can tell apart from some other concept) desides to delete it as unnotable or redundant ^_^;

Re:Institutions

[Dushnock]

Let's not confuse the issue(s).

I don't know of any teacher who told their students NOT to use Wikipedia.
As a teacher I use Wikipedia, I tell my students to use it... However, I also tell them that Wikipedia is not a source to quote !

Use Wikipedia to do basic research and get fundamental and background information, then follow the links at the end of the articles and then you have a full dataset.
Quote the original source do not quote a generalistic encyclopedia.

Those are two different issues and (some) people seem to confuse them.
But then, I also (try to) teach them how to use Wikipedia.

Re:Institutions

[Anonymous Coward]

>'proscribed reading'

This doesn't mean what you think it does, by the context in which you use it.

You probably meant "prescribed reading".

HTH. HAND.

Re:Institutions

[tajmahall]

I'd say it's not exactly correct to say that the overshoot "remains there in the limit". The limiting behavior all depends on your definition of convergence. In some senses, the limit of the partial sums of the Fourier series exists and may be equal to the actual function. In others, the limit might not exist. For a square wave, here are a few examples:

- Pointwise, the Fourier series converges everywhere except at the point of discontinuity. There, it converges to the average of the left and right limits. In this sense there's no overshoot in the limit.

- In root mean square norm (L^2 norm), the Fourier series converges. i.e. The integral of the square of the absolute value of the error between the partial sums and the actual function goes to 0. In this sense, there's also no overshoot in the limit.

- In the uniform norm, the Fourier series does not converge. i.e. For some fixed error epsilon, there is always some point where the error between the partial sum and the actual function is at least epsilon. As stated in the article, a priori this property isn't anything special. It is impossible to uniformly approximate any discontinuous function by any sequence of continuous functions. Now, the Gibbs phenomenon is more, because not only do the partial sums not converge uniformly, but they always overshoot the left and right limits by a fixed amount. You can't say really that something happens "in the limit" because the limit does not exist. However, the limit fails to exist in an interesting way.

You can certainly get a discontinuous function being the sum of sines and cosines, as in this example.

The article looks entirely correct to me as is. I think any exposition is going to sweep some things under the rug, so I wouldn't worry too much if not all the details are fleshed out.

Re:Institutions

[tajmahall]

So in the actual infinite limit, you've got a finite-sized error at the discontinuity happening over an infinitesimal range. Whether this "counts" as an error (since the integrated error over all points is zero; it's not like a Dirac delta) depends on your discipline, I think.

In physics (and I imagine engineering, etc.) we tend to ignore stuff like this, since "true square waves" don't really exist.

I'm sorry, but this is nonsense. Your explanation of what happens in successive partial sums is correct, but in the "actual infinite limit", what happens depends entirely on what you mean. Different senses of convergence mean different things.

Even in applications it's important to identify what sort of convergence is relevant to your needs and interests. Engineers certainly do not ignore this stuff, and I'd be surprised if all physicists really did. It's an important consideration in image processing and computational PDE, as, for example, things like the Gibbs phenomenon make it difficult to get good resolution of sharp edges if you try to use Fourier series. Not caring how a series converges could cost you orders of magnitudes in computational time to get the image resolution you want. You've heard of wavelets, I presume? It doesn't matter that square waves "don't exist". Tons of money gets poured into studying these things because things which behave in much the same way do exist. To a mathematician, of course, it's a simple, interesting example that suggests deeper ideas about Fourier transforms. If you like, you can leave it at that.

Re:Institutions

[SlowMovingTarget]

The kind of rule you were advocating only needs one exception to show that it is a bad rule.

Re:Institutions

[SEWilco]

I don't expect a school to profit much from textbooks which it proscribes. They tend to sell more of the prescribed texts.

Re:Institutions

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this attests to the fact that the facts of science are truly facts and not opinions. These facts are just easier to maintain. The people who view these are typically scientifically minded and will spot flaws in equations. The ones who write the articles are typically scientists or mathematicians so they won't want to come out looking like idiots for not checking their work. Non-scientists and non-mathematicians are just not going to be capable of posting accurate equations or even understanding them, so they leave them alone. This leaves only professionals who post in scientific articles. They're used to real peer review. They're just using another venue to add to the exchange of information.

Scientists are trained to methodically examine and test their hypothesis, and when enough proof is available, release them for peer review. For all you non-scientists out there, theories are well tested, peer reviewed hypothesis. Only the ignorant out there mutter, "It's only a theory," as if they were still hypothesis, but that's just my opinion of the ignorant.

Then there's the political articles that contain opinions. Opinions come in many flavours, and anyone can form an opinion, right or wrong. It is harder to remove opinions from discussions in matters of political discourse.

ok, that's as much I can write while dizzy with a cold

Not a spec of Bias.

[djcapelis]

So they ask Jimmy Wales if he thinks his encyclopedia is a good resource and then pose the same question to Wikipedia's main competitor?

Well color me surprised at the answers.

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[Anonymous Coward]

pose the same question to Wikipedia's main competitor? Wikipedia and Britannica are not competitors. No one who needs to purchase a copy of Britannica is going to say "gee, I don't actually need this, I'll just use Wikipedia instead!". Anyone who does say that is not in Britannica's target market.

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a big difference, though: Jimbo's not talking about Britannica at all, and instead just talks about the positive aspects of Wikipedia. Britannica, on the other hand, don't talk about the positive aspects of their product at all really, just about the negative aspects of Wikipedia.

What you'll make of that is up to you, but personally, I find someone who says "you should choose my product because it's good" more likeable than someone who goes "my competitor's product is bad, therefore you should choose mine by default".

It's really sad to see that the only thing Britannica, an encyclopaedia with a tradition of more than 200 years, has left as a selling point is "Wikipedia sucks".

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[Wellspring]

My school doesn't permit wikipedia as a source, and for very good reason. [[WP:RS]] -- Not a Reliable Source even by its own standards

I've been caught up in the anti-wikipedia controversy lately. I'm still a very happy and frequent contributor/user and so I'm all the more concerned when I hear about overt manipulations that occur at the very top by a core group who (except for Jimbo himself) hide behind their usernames and are completely anonymous. That adds to the grain of salt I have from the subtle sources of bias that can creep in.

So, no, I don't consider Wikipedia to be sourceable, certainly not at the university level, perhaps not even at the high school level. Instead, you should use wikipedia as a starting point in your research, maybe going to the references in the articles you find. But as the recent controversy shows, you can't just stop there. You need to really hunt around for opposing viewpoints that might be intentionally suppressed.

At the graduate level, using wikipedia does more harm than good-- it biases your thinking without providing you with depth. At that level, you should already have the overview of the topic anyway. Instead you really should use traditional research techniques and bypass Wikipedia altogether.

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[metallic]

The real question is what kind of school actually lets you cite an article from an encyclopedia? I've never been able to do so at either the high school or the college level.

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[guruevi]

Anybody that is researching stuff and either uses Wikipedia or another encyclopedia (Brittanica) as a single source should indeed be failed for their research project. To ban Wikipedia all together is just a knee-jerk reaction by people that don't know what's going on and don't want to know (kinda like Christian fundamentalists). Schools much rather ban something than to have to do the extra work to verify more than one reliable source. It's bad practice in general and I would not like to be in such school surrounded by incompetent educators (probably why I left school and learned everything I know about computer science, data technology, electronics etc. by myself).

I myself do use Wikipedia occasionally as a source to make a point, however I also include the sources that Wikipedia sources and there are plenty of other sources where you can find information about a subject.

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[lubricated]

I've used it at the graduate level. Not even close to being something I would consider citing. I did find it useful as it pointed me in a direction that I looked into further.

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[legirons]

But does the wikipedia article usually link to something that you *can* cite as a source?

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[jc42]

Anybody that is researching stuff and either uses Wikipedia or another encyclopedia (Brittanica) as a single source should indeed be failed for their research project.

[Emphasis added]

Congrats on the subtle introduction of a straw man argument.

Nobody suggests using wikipedia as a single source. Nobody suggests using Enc.Brit. as a single source, either. Wales was just quoted as saying that his site is an educational resource, which it certainly is.

And by junior high, any student should know how to use the list of bibliographic links at the bottom of most wikipedia articles. This is a big improvement over what most dead-tree encyclopedias provide, when they provide such references at all.

(I wonder if Enc.Brit. has similar links in their online articles? But I'm not curious enough to pay for a subscription to find out. ;-)

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[Rob Simpson]

Exactly. Heck, for most university courses, citing books was frowned upon - too general and likely to be years out of date. Wikipedia might be a good starting point, but using encyclopedias as a reference past elementary school is a joke.

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well color me surprised at the answers.

Sorry, I don't have "Surprised" in my crayon box. Will "Hot Pink" do?

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[blitziod]

what if you are writing a paper on wikipedia? or on open source reference tools? Or on collabrative knowledge? Fuck! A blanket ban on any reference , regardless of topic is stupid. A blanket ban on any reference is stupid also...just a way for the prof/teacher to get out of having to decide if a students paper AS a WHOLE has merit. If I site 100 references and 1 is wikipedia my paper is not as thorough as somebody who has 5 and one is britanica?

Re:Not a spec of Bias.

[MoriaOrc]

In those cases, you'd probably want to cite Wiki policy pages, or things like that of course. Most of the citations would probably come from studies and articles about wiki phenomenon, though.

Sure a blanket ban would be stupid in those cases, but I think a Professor that is going to assign a paper about one of those topics isn't very likely to ban citing Wikipedia. Discouraging citations of actual articles (rather then policy statements) would still make sense.

yup

[ILuvRamen]

No matter how clean it gets, there's still instances like the Jeff Garlen article saying he was killed by a mountain goat or whatever for months and months and nobody fixed it. Anyone can still put anything on it which means all of it can't be 100% correct and that's that.

Re:yup

[dangitman]

Anyone can still put anything on it which means all of it can't be 100% correct and that's that.

Not even Britannica is 100% correct, so I'm not sure there's any substance to the point you're trying to make.

Re:yup

[Anonymous Coward]

So if someone prints that information in a book or host it in a non-*wikipedia.org domain it gets more credibility?

Re:yup

[jacquesm]

that if the britannica is wrong it is by omission or human error, not by malice.

Re:yup

[dangitman]

So, what's the difference? The end result is the same.

Students should be taught to be skeptical of all sources - rather than having one considered "bad" and others considered "correct". Because they can all be wrong.

Re:yup

[jacquesm]

I guess the difference is that wikipedia contains a fairly large amount of factual errors and the Britannica much less. There seems to be a group of people that get off on vandalizing wikipedia. Personally I think they're jerks, but there are apparently trolls in any online system that gets large enough (including slashdot) that seem to be hellbent on spoiling other peoples enjoyment and hard work. It's annoying but it's a fact of online life. That said, wikipedia's breadth is nothing short of stunning and if you keep a half eye open and are vigilant you will likely do fine. As with any other source of information, never rely on one :)

It's sad but online projects now start with analyzing the abuse potential instead of seeing what you could do in a cooperative fashion. There are days that I find myself wishing for positively identified access to the internet, but that would definitely not be a solution, that's just my frustration speaking.

Re:yup

[dangitman]

I guess the difference is that wikipedia contains a fairly large amount of factual errors and the Britannica much less.

But Wikipedia also covers a much wider range of topics than Britannica. You can find info on Wikipedia that Britannica just won't cover. I think that's a fair trade-off. Better to have some information that is possibly flawed than to have none at all.

Re:yup

[INowRegretThesePosts]

I guess the difference is that wikipedia contains a fairly large amount of factual errors and the Britannica much less. Not according to Nature: http://www.news.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html.

They are bad teachers

[pHatidic]

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher. You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either, you have to follow the exact same procedure, so there is no difference. I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia.

Re:They are bad teachers

[evanbd]

Exactly. That's a policy worth following even at the level of internet debates. If someone asks me for a summary of a topic, I'll point them at the article. However, if what's called for is a discussion of one aspect, or an authoritative reference, WP is not the right answer. However, more and more I find that WP is the fastest way to find a good reference on a subject -- find the relevant article, look at the references section, and the odds are good there will be an appropriate link.

Knowing how to use, and more importantly, how not to use, and encyclopedia should be basic knowledge. Teachers should be teaching it, and shouldn't matter in the slightest what encyclopedia you use for a paper, because the reader will never know.

Re:They are bad teachers

[cprael]

No, every fact on Wiki has a link back to a source. That source might be a primary source, or it might be hearsay, or a first-person witness statement... with the inherent biases therein.

Found it interesting having a factual debate on a particular Wiki page about a particular fact.

Source A (me) was a first-person participant, but was barred from directly describing something since no original research is allowed to be posted on Wiki.

Source B was also a first-person participant, and agreed in private email about the facts of the matter.

Source C was also a first-person participant, but had gotten in a pissing match, oh, 15 years ago with source B. However, since he'd made a usenet post at the time, that was considered a "primary source" and thus was gospel. It was, however, wrong as stated at the time, and therefore wrong in Wiki. But wasn't allowed to be amended due to the sourcing rules.

Wiki is only as good as the last person who posts an edit. Nothing more or less. Its fact-checking controls _suck_.

Re:They are bad teachers

[fhqwhgads]

Really? I would say that is not the case based on my experience with Wikipedia. Having just done a rough count of those articles in the articles lacking sources category, roughly 4% of all wikipedia articles are tagged as having no sources. And using an admittedly small sample of 20 random articles (discarding the disambiguation pages), only five were sourced - and that's including three stubs with one source apiece. I'm sure YMMV with that standard, however, as I came across 2 articles in the aforementioned category, which would be a disproportionally large.

Re:They are bad teachers

[WestCoastJTF]

I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia.

Why not? You're defending something Wales didn't say in the article.

I guess RTFA is sort of like looking at a "primary source"...

Re:They are bad teachers

[capoccia]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_source_examples#Are_USENET_postings_reliable_sources.3F

Are USENET postings reliable sources?

Posts on USENET are rarely regarded as reliable sources, because they are easily forged or misrepresented, and many are anonymous or pseudonymous.

One exception is that some authorities on certain topics have written extensively on USENET, and their writings there are vouched for by them or by other reliable sources. A canonical example is J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of the television series Babylon 5, who discussed the show at length on Usenet. His postings are archived and authenticated on his website, and may be an acceptable source on the topic of Babylon 5 under the self-publication provision of WP:ATT.

Re:They are bad teachers

[Sycraft-fu]

"Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source."

Have you ever actually read Wikipedia? Is there a different one I'm not aware of? That statement is wrong in two major ways:

1) Many things do NOT have links. You can find whole articles full of nothing but [citation needed] or ones without even that. Many things have links to sources, however many don't. As such while it can potentially be useful for background research, it isn't like a scholarly paper where you are guaranteed a list of works cited. Maybe you get that, maybe you don't.

2) Equally important many of the sources are not primary and often no good. I can link to a page saying anything I wanted. If I wanted I could just make some shit up, post it on my own website, and link to it. Bam, there's a source. However that doesn't mean the source is any good or that the information is true. A reference to a source is only good if the source is accurate, and really to be useful it needs to be to a primary source (meaning for statistics from research you don't link to an article discussing someone's research, you link to the research itself).

Wikipedia really isn't a good starting point for a scholarly paper unless you know nothing about the topic and are looking for general background. A search through a good library collection is going to get you far more useful starting points, and the works cited from those will continue it. With Wikipedia it's a crap shoot. Maybe you get a good article, edited by experts, with proper citations that will lead you to material you can use. Maybe you get a page written by an idiot, that links to misinformation.

Re:They are bad teachers

[nmb3000]

I fixed your edit to this discussion.

Revision as of Fri Dec 07, '07 11:52 PM:

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher. You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either, you have to follow the exact same procedure, so there is no difference. I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia.

Revision as of Sat Dec 08, '07 01:23 AM:

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source {citation needed}. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that {citation needed}, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material {citation needed}. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher {citation needed}. You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either {citation needed}, you have to follow the exact same procedure {citation needed}, so there is no difference {citation needed}. I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia {citation needed}.

Re:They are bad teachers

[GospelHead821]

Golly, it's only 2:20 in the morning and I have already learned something today. All the way through high school, I was taught that encyclopedias were appropriate reference sources for papers. In fact, I don't think that any of my teachers even pointed out that the encyclopedia cites primary sources. By the time I was writing papers where it was necessary to consult primary sources, encyclopedias were hardly even worth looking at in the first place. That's a good piece of knowledge to have. When I have kids and they're struggling as much with their papers as I did, I'll direct their attention to the references at the bottom of their encyclopedia article and they'll have LOADS more about which to write.

Re:They are bad teachers

[TheSeer2]

Sure every source has a link back. Maybe on the 0.1% of articles that have decent people working on them. For the rest, there's usually a "group" that reverts any attempt to remove uncited content.

Re:They are bad teachers

[tmk]

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source.

No. There should be a link to every source but this goal is far from being achieved. And most sources used in Wikipedia are those that can be found with Google, not the actual primary sources.

Re:They are bad teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

"...All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material..."

Wikipedia vandalism by the elite assessors with their secret mailing lists now comprises cutting out all reference to anything they don't approve of. So this advice will leave you (in some cases) with a biased and one-sided view of a subject.

Luckilly, the Illuminatii who control access to this knowledge all seem to be American. So if you look at a non-American topic it will probably be undefiled. Anything the Americans have an interest in, however, will be presented in a biased way.

So what the teachers should be saying is:

  - Don't use it for American politics.
  - When you use it for technical issues, ignore references to the long list of Americans who are claimed to have invented whatever it is.
  - Don't use it for American history.
  - It's probably ok for Geography and Maths, but don't expect decent coverage of any non-American place
  - Don't use it for any reference to records or extreme human endeavor - non-American instances will be ignored
  - .....
  -

Re:They are bad teachers

[ultranova]

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher.

As has been recently brought up, Wikipedia is not above corruption. It can be used to push an agenda, simply by leaving out sources which contradict your agenda and linking to those which agree with it. If you aren't already familiar with the subject (which would make Wikipedia unneccessary), how are you going to notice ?

No, a teacher who tells his students to not trust Wikipedia is right. It can't be trusted, at least not for anything the people in charge of it are likely to care about. Of course the exact same is true of Encyclopedia Britannica and any imaginable source.

So... what does that leave us with ? A healthy amount of suspicion for any information source, I'd hope. And I truly hope that students learn mistrust and suspicion, rather than blindly believing anyone who can get at least one other creep to agree with them.

Re:They are bad teachers

[ThePromenader]

I concur. Wikipedia does have a set of rules and guidelines, but whether an article actually adheres to the same is indeed a crapshoot whose winning odds decline with the article's contributor popularity. Technology and science-oriented articles seem to be the best of the lot, but the quality declines towards more "human" topics such as history and cities; these tend to be biased through selective fact, or read like a fan/tourist brochure. Worse still, those with a strong but minority point of view can "squat" a lesser-frequented article to make sure that it relates only their own vision of things.

What Wiki lacks is refinement. An imposed authoritarian review of all contributions would kill the encyclopaedia, but there is no reason not to create a second "college level" crew of Wikipedians whose role would be verifying the factual accuracy/objectivity/style of their articles.

Re:They are bad teachers

[LordVader717]

Whilst what you say may be true for most "random articles", the articles with any real scientific depth (check for example the featured articles) will rarely tolerate "citation needed" brackets for very long, and mainly cite either scientific literature, or reputable news sources.

Maybe you get a good article, edited by experts, with proper citations that will lead you to material you can use. Maybe you get a page written by an idiot, that links to misinformation.

That's something the reader should decide for himself, and for somebody writing a scholarly paper, that should be the least of their qualities. You can find an lot of fraud and pseudo-science in libraries as well. Anybody can print something on paper and get an ISBN number, just as anybody can spew out crap on a web page.

Re:They are bad teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Well thanks to the shit teachers where I go to school (a moderately prestigious university), Wikipedia has become an important source of information, whether or not it is always correct. You can't downplay the importance of something that is: free and more accurate than professors who get confused at their own examples. If they took away internet access to Wikipedia I'm pretty sure the whole school would start flunking classes. A sad state of affairs to be sure, but such is life.

Re:They are bad teachers

[boot_img]

There is a lot more to creating a good and accurate entry than simply linking facts to sources.

More important is the overall picture presented of complex phenomena: which facts are included, which are downplayed, and which are omitted entirely. I'm an astrophysics prof, and while I do use Wikipedia myself occasionally, I have also seen some very bad or misleading articles (this is in areas where I have expertise). So I advise my students to use it with extreme caution. It's OK starting point for further research, but it shouldn't be their first and last stop.

(In principle, I would be happy to contribute specialist-level articles myself, but it's a fair bit of work, and I am not keen that someone else (who has a lot less expertise) could overwrite my contribution.)

Re:They are bad teachers

[Weezul]

You can't expect young kids to understand about primary sources. It's all a question of the kids age. It's actually not trivial to track down a source.

In general, we communicate our culture to kids by simplifying it, once their basic thought processes are "in line", then we explain that Santa Clause and God don't exist, and not everything you read is true. We're still learning how much one can change this.

OLPC includes a kinda stable core version of Wikipedia. I don't see why this can't be provided on the internet for younger kids.

Re:They are bad teachers

[dominious]

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source . All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material . Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher . You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either class either , you have to follow the exact same procedure , so there is no difference . I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia .

Re:They are bad teachers

[jerryasher]

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source{{fact|citation needed}}

Re:They are bad teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Slashdot has the same problems Wikipedia does then. Because you just posted a blatant troll and some biased mods just rated you interesting, thus moving your post upward and making it seem more authoritative. Wikipedia does tend to have a bias towards America, if you don't like that, there are several other languages of Wikipedia available to use that probably aren't written by Americans.

Re:They are bad teachers

[hedwards]

That's insufficient for any kind of reasonable research. Just because you can find a source for something doesn't mean that it is a good source, even if it is a good source, doesn't mean that there aren't other points of view that have been left out. Or even that an important one wasn't ommited because it conflicted with a popular view.

The biggest problem with the wikipedia is that there isn't any particular guarantee that the authors were putting up information that is correct. In many cases it looks good, but it is the sort of grade school equivalent of what is really a PhD., level topic. Which is to say that it might be used to teach the subject at the lower levels, but it isn't really fair to suggest that it is correct.

The more troubling things are when there are subtle edits done to change the meaning of an article. It's one thing to throw out articles that suggest that various EFF members posed for goatse, but quite another to toss articles that suggest that Bill Gates went to Yale.

And unlike a physical encyclopedia which has a large cost to publish, the wikipedia is unlikely to put out that kind of money getting their site seen. And that does make a difference, there are quite a few things that I wouldn't write if I had to pay for publishing them rather than putting them here for free.

Re:They are bad teachers

[DerekLyons]

Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source.

Every fact? Not by at least a couple orders of magnitude. Hell, I just chose a term at random, Film, and found almost no citations! I click on 'Film Crew'... And find no links there either. I click on "First Assistant Director" off of that, am redirected to "Assistant Director"... still no links.
 
 

You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either, you have to follow the exact same procedure, so there is no difference.

I've taken real classes - and you most certainly are allowed to cite the Britannica, though you'll be in trouble if you cite it for other than general purposes.

Re:They are bad teachers

[Beetle B.]

No, every fact on Wiki has a link back to a source. That source might be a primary source, or it might be hearsay, or a first-person witness statement... with the inherent biases therein. I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Yes, every claim on Wikipedia has a source - and it's the IP address of the person who posted it.

But if you meant to say verifiable, then you're dead wrong. Articles I read are littered with claims and no references at all. It doesn't say "eyewitnesses". Just makes the claims. Have you never seen the "citation needed" tag (which, IMO, is a heavily politically abused tag)?

Re:They are bad teachers

[Beetle B.]

++ for humor.

But seriously, I wish Wikipedia had an option (or does it?) that allowed me to quickly (via Javascript, say) turn off all those citation needed tags on a given page. They're just plain ugly, and I think I'm smart enough to know that if it doesn't have a proper reference attached to it, then it automatically needs a citation. I don't need to have it tell me explicitly.

I have issues with that tag altogether. It's applied liberally, but not equally. It's simply another way of calling into question something a particular user may not want others to trust. It's an explicit way for me to say, "Yeah, you can say that - but can you prove it?"

I've even seen it used where the sentence was claiming that a certain entity did not exist. How do you cite that, and do you need to? Can one prove nonexistence?

If an article states, "There have been no known instances of snuff videos" (snuff being with intention for profit) - is it not ridiculous to put a Citation needed tag on that?

Re:They are bad teachers

[nuzak]

> In fact, I don't think that any of my teachers even pointed out that the encyclopedia cites primary sources.

They don't, they cite secondary sources. That's why they're called tertiary sources.

A primary source is an eyewitness. A secondary source is typically a newspaper.

Re:They are bad teachers

[S.Rowsby]

I agree. Wikipedia is an excellent resource if you know how to use it properly. As you say many articles have links to their original sources. Aside from that the further reading links at the bottom pages often point to academic resources and the like. In many subjects it is also wise to read the edit history to see differing opinions on theories. Another tool that wikipedia is great for is to supplement explaining things within a topic.

I don't see what all the fuss is about with wikipedia. Everyone was up in arms when encarta was released because students were using that instead of going to libraries and getting proper articles. I suppose encarta didn't have the problem that anyone could edit it.

Re:They are bad teachers

[ceoyoyo]

I think you've hit it. Wikipedia is tremendously valuable educationally, NOT as a citable source but rather as a jumping off place and a way to teach both fact checking and critical thinking.

Re:They are bad teachers

[ceoyoyo]

It's a bit of a crap shoot, but it's not a bad source (not a citable one, but an information source), even if you do know something about the topic.

I just wrote a paper on time/frequency analysis. I needed some information on Daubechies' D2 wavelet as background to compare against a new transform, so I looked it up on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daubechies_wavelet.

Down at the bottom is the primary source, Ingrid Daubechies' Ten Lectures on Wavelets (which could be cited a little better, admittedly), and a textbook that I referenced as an overview of the topic.

Re:They are bad teachers

[ceoyoyo]

I should post my paper manuscripts to Wikipedia. Articles there seem to get written the same way I write papers -- I start writing, stick in {REF} tags where I remember, go through and put in more {REF} tags, then fill in the references. If I could get someone else to stick in all those tags it would save me quite a bit of work.

Re:They are bad teachers

[cprael]

Look at the parent message. Specifically "Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material." At the time I replied, it was modded up to 4 (Insightful). It was not a 4, and was not insightful, and I was demonstrating why. You might note that since then, it's been modded back down to a 1.

The original poster was making claims about the factual nature of statements on Wiki, and how they're always supported by a primary source. I was pointing out that (a) the source might not be a primary, (b) the way sources are handled, bias is allowed through without comment, and (c) the "no primary research" rule doesn't allow for rebuttal from knowledgable individuals who don't bother to post a web page or some other such.

To take that further, the "no primary" rule is extremely stupid. The same statement is disallowed if posted first on Wiki, but allowed _and accepted as a cite_, if posted somewhere else first. WTF?

Re:They are bad teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooh, great job citing a single source, and a tertiary one at that. FAIL.

Re:They are bad teachers

[Half-pint HAL]

Equally important many of the sources are not primary and often no good.

Yeah, but at least we can check secondary sources. Primary sources are usually subscription only! Yes, the students will have access to the references (either in the library or via Athens, Blackwells, etc) but do the site admins...?

Herein lies WP's core dilemma: do we prefer verifiable information from unreliable secondary sources or reliable information from unverifiable primary sources?

HAL.

Re:They are bad teachers

[rizzo320]

You just made the original posters point. If the reference to an entire article is some blog entry or whack-ball website, then, it's probably not a good source. This is no different using an opinion piece in a newspaper or some type of propaganda flyer as a source.

The point still is that there was a source listed. The person doing the research would need to judge whether they feel the source is reliable enough to investigate and use in their paper. If they are a student at the high school or college level, and they think that referencing that blog or web site in their paper will get them a good grade, so be it. In lower age/grades, it's up to the teacher to guide a student on what is an acceptable resource for use with a paper.

The fact that Wikipedia may contain articles or topics that don't have reliable sources of information doesn't preclude it from being used in a students research. Students should be encouraged to investigate and discover all useful resources they can. It can't hurt them. If a teacher can't be bothered to help a student sort out what is an acceptable source or an unacceptable source for their paper, whose fault is that?

Re:They are bad teachers

[91degrees]

If people know how to use the resource correctly, wikipedia is a useful tool. It aggregates and summarises a lot of sources which can then be anlysed individually for bias and reliability.

If I had my way, Wikipedia would contain a few locked explicitely and well known fake articles where every source explained that the article was a fake to teach people to check the sources...

Re:They are bad teachers

[blitziod]

the idea behind wiki is that the crap will get edited out..or at least have an opposing view along side it

Re:They are bad teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

you forgot a {this article is marked for speedy deletion under wikipedia's we're-smarter-than-you-and-so nobody-cares-about-your-specialist-topic policy}

Re:They are bad teachers

[Anonymous Coward]

The best humor is funny because it's so damn true. Like your post.

{citation needed} seems to be passive-aggressive editors' favorite way to discredit common knowledge that they disagree with.

Such as: the Earth has existed for millions of years {citation needed}.

Doesn't really need a citation. Just some pissy editor wanted to make you think twice about believing it. Yeah, a citation would be nice, but an article filled with 30 {citation needed}s on well established, hundreds or more sources type of stuff is kinda silly.

vandalism

[CapsLock343]

The bus is prone to vandalism. I should stop using that.

Re:vandalism

[Smidge204]

Well, if the vandalism includes things like changing the route number and destination sign, so the bus takes you somewhere you didn't want to go, maybe you SHOULD stop using it.

=Smidge=

Sure they should, sorta

[Just Some Guy]

Students should definitely use Wikipedia as a good place to find real sources. Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Anonymous Coward]

it's useful as a general resource to become nominally informed like any other web page. the previous statement is compatible with it being full of mistakes because it should be used as a good enough reference not an authoritative source of information (some articles are quite good, others are horrible)

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Z00L00K]

It's possible to cite Wikipedia, but one thing as a student is that you must learn how to be critical of your sources. If Wikipedia is one source among others it's one thing but as any sole source of information it may be utterly wrong. No dictionary is free of errors.

It also depends on your point of view if you think that some information is correct or not.

And don't forget - Wikipedia may actually contain original information from time to time and that's worth to consider. Just because some abuses the tool doesn't mean that the tool is useless. On the contrary - it means that the tool is actually useful enough to draw the interest of abusers. The only catch is to identify the abusers.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[VGPowerlord]

And don't forget - Wikipedia may actually contain original information from time to time and that's worth to consider. Just because some abuses the tool doesn't mean that the tool is useless. On the contrary - it means that the tool is actually useful enough to draw the interest of abusers. The only catch is to identify the abusers.

Wikipedia policy is to not contain original information, so you shouldn't be looking for it there.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[MarcoF]

"Students should definitely use Wikipedia as a good place to find real sources. Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research." I couldn't have said it better, see my own thoughts on why Wikipedia should never be used as a real source here: http://digifreedom.net/node/61

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Zibblsnrt]

One other thing that a student must learn is that encyclopedias typically aren't useful material for citation in the first place. If you're doing research at anything beyond a fifth-grade library project, you need to get your information from grownup books. If a student of mine used Wikipedia, Britannica, or any other encyclopedia or encyclopedoid thing in a paper, I wouldn't recognize it as a valid source for citation, and neither would (or should) most other educators at the high school or university levels.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Mr_eX9]

I must have missed the boat on this one in high school--I cited Britannica in most of my History papers, and Wikipedia a couple of times as well. I was never told "Don't cite an encyclopedia" or why encyclopedias aren't good sources. I did, of course, provide other sources as well.

My Computer Science undergrad curriculum doesn't have me writing any research papers, so perhaps I just haven't been exposed to college-level expectations of research papers, APs nonwithstanding. So, what exactly is wrong with citing an encyclopedia?

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[jacquesm]

that the source is 'second hand'. if they're halfway decent about it they will cite *their* sources, then you might as well go there and check up on it. If you've done that you are now in a position to cite the original article.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Oligonicella]

Oh, please. Abusers are drawn to subway walls too. But you do nail the crux of WP's problem. Catching and identifying the abusers.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[seandiggity]

Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research.

Wonderful description of, and advice for, Thomas L. Friedman. But then again, I guess he didn't really cite it (instead beginning sentences with "according to Wikipedia"). And, if he actually did consult Wikipedia (not just use it to reveal his "Web 2.0 hipness"), he got basic facts wrong about something Wikipedia is very good at describing (F/OSS). Some gems from "The World Is Flat, Release 2.0" that I know /. readers will appreciate:

"In 1991, a student at the University of Helsinki named Linus Torvalds, building off of Stallman's initiative, posted his Linux operating system to compete with the Microsoft Windows operating system..." (p. 105)

"Much like Microsoft Windows, Linux offers a family of operating systems that can be adapted to run on the smallest desktop computers, laptops, PalmPilots, and even wristwatches, all the way up to the largest supercomputers and mainframes." (p. 106)

"Red Hat won't sell you Linux per se -- that's not allowed -- but for a fee it will provide support and customize Linux for your business." (p. 107)

...I won't even get into his analysis of the situation, or the pages he devotes to Microsoft's "perspective" on the topic.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Twinbee]

A citation from Wikipedia is better than no citation at all. If you already have a citation from a 'primary' source (if ever such a thing could be said), then it really doesn't hurt to ALSO have a citation from Wikipedia as a secondary citation. In fact, it's good practise to have at least one citation for any given fact anyway, especially if the 'fact' may be questionable.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Beetle B.]

So, what exactly is wrong with citing an encyclopedia? Encyclopedias - be they Wikipedia or Britannica - have been known to contain errors and biased viewpoints. Neither has the rigorous peer reviews that you may find in journals.

But I guess the simple answer to your question is that they are not a source. Encyclopedias generally do not contain original work. They just are a reference of other people's work, but they may not be cited accurately. So you should just use an encyclopedia to find the "other" work and read that instead.

(For anything serious - few people care for class reports).

Think of it this way: If Bob comes to you and states an outrageous and scientific/historical fact, you don't automatically trust it. He then claims to have read it in Nature/{some history journal}. The question then is that, not really knowing Bob and how critical he is at reading (or trustworthy he is in not mangling data for his cause), do you just accept his word or do you check up the Nature article yourself?

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Belial6]

You are mostly correct. The king's invisible clothes though is the the fact that except for the hard sciences where you can actually look at the numbers and other data, 'primary sources' are totally unreliable. The fact that the 'primary source' wrote their opinion piece in a book instead of on the internet doesn't make it any more reliable.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[jc42]

if they're halfway decent about it they will cite *their* sources, then you might as well go there and check up on it. If you've done that you are now in a position to cite the original article.

Yes, when that's possible. With many topics, including most recent scientific stories, it's often not possible to cite the original sources. Those sources are usually restricted to subscribers only, and it's absurd to expect a student to take out a subscription to every journal in order to get at the primary sources. That would be far beyond the financial capability of most studends.

This has always been a problem, although at good schools, it has often been possible (if slow) to get under-the-table copies of articles in obscure journals. One of the downsides to scientific journals going online is that this is growing more difficult now. The growing strictness of copyright enforcement has added to the problem.

However, one of the interesting developments is that many researchers now put summaries of their results into wikipedia as they publish their results on restricted sites. This is mostly true for subjects that have a great deal of public interest, such as astronomy and medicine, but it happens in other fields.

So a realistic approach is to use wikipedia to get the details on research where the primary articles aren't available within your budget. Then you just have the problem that your instructors will grade you down if you cite the only independent, reliable source that you can easily access.

Something's not quite right here. It really sounds like a "Keep 'em ignorant" approach to learning. Not that there's anything new with that.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[jacquesm]

I'm strongly of the opinion that *any* research ought to be public, no restrictions whatsoever. nature publishes your paper, for 3 months they can charge for it, after that it automatically enters the public domain. After all none of those universities would be anywhere at all if not for the the public funding.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Anonymous Coward]

It may contain original information, but because it's against policy to have original research, original material is usually eventually replaced with sourced material.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Jugalator]

Students should definitely use Wikipedia as a good place to find real sources. Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research. I don't see the problem in citing Wikipedia if you have verified that the information is correct according to the provided source. I don't think there'd be much difference from that compared to going to referencing the original source. After all, it's pretty rare students do that anyway, or that it's a requirement. When citing something about how radioactivity works, one don't usually backtrace to published papers from Madame Curie. As long as the info has been verified, I think the only problem with citing Wikipedia is teachers who oppose it regardless how well sourced the facts were. That's the main obstacle to overcome. Especially if you switch source from Wikipedia to something else, and do the same background checks, and suddenly everything is OK.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Just Some Guy]

I don't see the problem in citing Wikipedia if you have verified that the information is correct according to the provided source.

I do. If you can verify that the original source says something, then just cite that source directly. If you can't verify that the original source agrees with it, then you shouldn't be citing Wikipedia anyway.

Re:Sure they should, sorta

[Anonymous Coward]

Banning the citation of true and useful information from any source is ridiculous. Of course books, academic journals, etc. should be central in serious research projects. However there is no reason for supplemental information to not come from compendiums such as Brittanica and yes even Wikipedia.

rubish...

[Slurpee]

I'm a student doing my second degree in a fairly rigorous academic institution. This time it is a humanity degree (As opposed to my first degree - Computer Science).

There is no way referencing Wikipedia is OK. It's not peer reviewed. Not only is the information often wrong, but the information it does has is very biased (which is OK - all information is biased, but you need to see the whole range). Referencing Wikipedia is like saying "Some random guy on the internet once said...". Not exactly a lot of weight.

But using Wikipedia for a starting point - that's a good thing to do. When researching a new subject, I will often read Wikipedia for initial information, and use the sources it cites as a starting point.

Re:rubish...

[Alaria Phrozen]

It's not peer reviewed. I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed?

Re:rubish...

[Anonymous Coward]

"often wrong" -- anything to back up that up? Because it seems it is the other way.

Re:rubish...

[Anonymous Coward]

And what humanity article are you going to find that's peer reviewed? Most articles are going to be position papers, not scientific ones. I find Wikipedia a really good source to cite* when defining definitions or looking up statistics - it's going to be about as accurate as any other paper out there. Furthermore, considering that Wikipedia has been found to be about as accurate, if not moreso, than established encyclopedias, then it stands to reason that when citing Wikipedia, you should follow the exact same format as you would with any other encyclopedia.

* By cite, obviously you cite the specific article you're referencing, so that the transitive nature of WP doesn't impact your reference. Also, I like to check out the discussion page to make sure there's no dispute regarding accuracy about what I'm referencing - otherwise, I try to find another source.

Re:rubish...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no way referencing Wikipedia is OK. Not only is the information occassionally wrong, but the information it does have is sometimes biased (which is OK - all you need to do is look through the history page). Referencing Wikipedia is like saying "Some random peer reviewed articles on the internet once said...". Not exactly a lot of weight. Fixed some of that for you. [I know it's popular to rag on wikipedia, but please stop the hyperbole.]

Re:rubish...

[Derosian]

Not only is the information often wrong, but the information it does has is very biased (which is OK - all information is biased, but you need to see the whole range). Good thing you're going back to college.

Re:rubish...

[Zibblsnrt]

I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed?

If someone's got advanced degrees in a subject they've been studying for five or ten or thirty years, I somehow doubt they're going to consider J. Random Wikipedian to qualify as a "peer" as far as expertise or experience go.

Re:rubish...

[rm999]

I think you miss the point of your own argument. Yes, it is common knowledge that you can't reference Wikipedia, but I don't think you correctly argue why.

To make it clear, Wikipedia is a peer reviewed reference. It is *often* either correct, or so obviously wrong (i.e. vandalized) that it does not matter. Most people who argue it is biased don't realize anyone can hit the "edit" or "discussion" button on the top. This is all irrelvant in the academic world, hoever. You do not reference a secondary source - ever. You don't reference Britannica, you don't reference Wikipedia. If you want to reference something, you should find the original source, to avoid any sort of introduced bias or misinformation.

The less channels of information you go through, the better - this is the primary reason why you should never reference Wikipedia. As far as Jimmy Wales' original point? Yes, I think students should use Wikipedia because it is an excellent secondary source. At the same time, students should learn the shortcomings of secondary sources as well as Wikipedia's shortcomings specifically.

Re:rubish...

[Slurpee]

I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed? Before having a go at me - learn what peer review is. Perhaps check Wikipedia

And to others who have had a go at what I said - perhaps I was hasty in saying Wikipedia was "often" wrong, but it often struggles with nuances. Though it does give you a good general overview - and suggestions on where to go.

Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia. But you shouldn't cite it. A teacher who tells students (at whatever level) to not reference it is not a "bad teacher". They're a good teacher!

Re:rubish...

[astrotek]

I too use Wikipedia combined with Google Scholar. Scholar is basically cheating when you can write an entire paper with no research and then use edit out any potential problems and find research that matches. Anyway, plagiarism is called research when you quote your sources.

Re:rubish...

[steffenz]

Lol, people citing wikipedia to argue that one should not cite wikipedia. Can it get any better?

Re:rubish...

[Slurpee]

Sorry, but Wikipedia is not peer reviewed. Check Wikipedia for info on what peer reviewed means.

The other things you say is right, except you do reference secondary sources all the time "Academic A argued that Primary Source X Suggests Y in 1979, but this runs against the popular view Z first held by Academic B in 1988" or something like that at least (you get the idea).

But yeah - I agree. Wikipedia is a great source of information. Students should be using it. But they should *not* be citing it, nor should their teachers be spanked because they tell them not to cite it. I note the article almost equates not allowing students to cite it, with refusing access to it. They are very different things.

Re:rubish...

[Slurpee]

yep - lots of fun :-)

I'm hoping to create a paradox and watch the world explode.

Re:rubish...

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

It's not peer reviewed.

Well yes, but the contributions are reviewed by the contributor's peers. It's more like saying "Some random guy on the internet once said ... and pretty much everyone backed him up". Well, most articles tend to attract those who know a little about it, so it's not exactly random either.

Re:rubish...

[langelgjm]

I'm a student doing my second degree in a fairly rigorous academic institution.

Me too.

There is no way referencing Wikipedia is OK.

If by referencing you mean citing, I agree. And that's not limited to just Wikipedia, either - you shouldn't be citing Britannica, or any encyclopedia in your work. At least, that's what I've been taught - I've done it only once, and I've never found the need to do it again.

Re:rubish...

[owlnation]

I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed?

Peer review is pointless where cabals control information. Expert peers may disagree with the accuracy of info, but so what, if a cabal is making sure it stays inaccurate to further its own ends. This happens on Wikipedia. Which is why it must never be trusted.

Re:rubish...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly. The poster was referring to the fact that Wikipedia is not peer reviewed by the scientific community, in the same way that's necessary to have a paper published in a scientific journal.

Wikipedia is peer reviewed by anybody and everybody (good and bad alike).

Re:rubish...

[cashman73]

Actually, Wikipedia does have several (not just one) methods of internal review, by "peers" (defined as wikipedian volunteers reviewing other wikipedian's work). Take a look at the featured article, good article, and peer review processes. Some processes are naturally more rigorous than others, but there's also a rough rating system attached to articles as well. The problem with the review system, however, is that the vast majority of articles aren't covered by the featured and good ratings systems; out of over 2 million articles, there's only 1,749 featured articles and 3,188 good articles, which isn't even close to 1%! The overall review processes are also currently suffering from a general shortage of good reviewers, and particularly expert-level reviewers, not to mention huge backlogs at all of the nominations listing pages. There is, of course, a current effort underway at improving Wikipedia's review processes.

Re:rubish...

[STrinity]

I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed?

"Peer review" doesn't normally mean "J6P reviews what Joe Schmo wrote and makes corrections if he has time before his shift at 7-11."

Re:rubish...

[Sergeant Pepper]

a cabal is making sure it stays inaccurate to further its own ends I bet you needed three rolls of tinfoil for a hat like that.

Re:rubish...

[blueZ3]

If your peers are basement-dwelling 14-year-olds, political operatives, paranoics, or uninformed amateurs with an axe to grind, then I suppose that for you, the Wacki-pedia is peer reviewed.

Re:rubish...

[Anonymous Coward]

Peer review (known as refereeing in some academic fields) is a process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field.

No, Wikipedia is not peer reviewed.

Re:rubish...

[DerekLyons]

It's not peer reviewed.

I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed?

No, it's not peer reviewed. Read the article on [Academic] Peer Review, and compare it to the article on Wikipedia's peer review process. Note how the latter is very clear that it is not the former, and the former makes it clear why this is so.

Re:rubish...

[ls -la]

Peer reviewed by known experts in the field, mainly applied to technical articles.

Re:rubish...

[Beetle B.]

Most people who argue it is biased don't realize anyone can hit the "edit" or "discussion" button on the top. Perhaps they realize that their "corrections" will be removed within the hour.

I've been to a very large number of articles where this happens. Somehow, the Wikipedia process of arbitration simply fails to stem this.

Re:rubish...

[Bri3D]

Unless you consider a team of young editors focused more on bureaucracy, edit counts, and sockpuppets than accuracy and a vast crew of 12-15 year olds arguing about My Chemical Romance being classified as "emo" your peers, no, it's not peer reviewed.
The number of experienced, talented veterans in a given field editing Wikipedia is *tiny*.

Re:rubish...

[ceoyoyo]

Which field are you in? In mine, if you try and get a paper published that only says what other people have already said (properly referenced, of course) it gets sent back as rejected because of "no novelty" or "no original research."

Unless of course you're famous and the journal invited you to write a review paper.

Re:rubish...

[Explodicle]

Whoah! Someone on Slashdot who actually understands the subject an which he's making an opinion!

I present to you - The Anti-Slashdot Barnstar!

               ,O,
              ,OOO,
        'oooooOOOOOooooo'
          `OOOOOOOOOOO`
            `OOOOOOO`
            OOOO'OOOO
           OOO'   'OOO
          O'         'O

Re:rubish...

[AaxelB]

A teacher who tells students (at whatever level) to not reference it is not a "bad teacher". Agreed, but a teacher who tells students not even to use Wikipedia could arguably be called a bad teacher, as they're keeping the students away from an incredibly rich (not to mention free) fount of information. I think there have been reports of Wikipedia being banned on school networks, which is just ridiculous.

Re:rubish...

[Slurpee]

The article seems to be a little bit confused. Sometimes it mentions banning it (which it should not be banned), and sometimes it mentions citing it (which it should not be cited)

Re:rubish...

[rm999]

Wikipedia articles are peer reviewed, but using a different definition - it is not the academic journal version of peer review. In Wikipedia, a peer review is when people who have a lot of experience writing articles judge an article - not experts of a field judging the content of an article. They will check that facts are referenced, primary sources are accurate and correspond to the article's content, and that bias is minimized. IMO this is the best kind of peer review for an encyclopedia, because experts are not free of bias. By keeping an encyclopedia as only a summarization of primary sources, it maintains a certain independence. Therefore, I think Wikipedia's peer review does the job quite well (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review).

Citizendium utilizes an example of the academic version of peer review, in which experts in a field have more control over an article than the masses. The fundamental problem with this (ignoring the fact that not many actual experts want to go through the trouble of signing up) is that it gives total control to a small number of people from a specific background (academics). If you want to add a defense of Israel in an Israel vs Palestine article, you may have to deal with a Professor in Middle East politics who happens to have written his dissertation defending Palestine. While Wikipedia's article may be a constantly changing mess, Citizendium's version is *designed to be biased*. This is why I like Wikipedia's version of peer review more - the content is not judged, the article is.

Re:rubish...

[kbielefe]

I read a lot of non-fiction, a lot more than I ever did in college, and I have to tell you that wikipedia is one of the best sources out there.

I don't care what a college professor deems acceptable. People in the academic world teach you to only trust information that is generated and controlled by their world. They don't see the value of an open market of information to which anyone can contribute free of charge, because they make their living charging others for that same service, and think any knowledge worth knowing must be bought and paid for. When they say something is peer reviewed, they mean other people who work in universities, the vast majority of whom agree with them. People in the real world don't care where you learned something, as long as it can reasonably be expected to be accurate.

I'm not saying Wikipedia is perfect, but if an entry is controversial or its impartiality is at all in doubt, you know about it. At the very least, you see a "citation needed." I've never seen a warning saying "The impartiality of this work is in doubt" on an academic paper, or any of the other types of sources they deem acceptable to cite, even though I've read several where that was certainly the case.

The quality of Wikipedia reminds me of something Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace said a while ago about all the bickering in Washington over the war:

But the strength of the U.S. government is its ability to hear all voices and then act. Our enemies don't understand that. They don't understand democracy at all. They hear the dialogue in our country and assume it to be weakness. We hear the dialogue and understand it is the strength of our democracy. Over time, it gets us to the right place.

Wikipedia may occasionally seem chaotic, but over time, it gets to the right place.

Re:rubish...

[TheRaven64]

The thing that puts me off reviewing wikipedia articles is that there is really no good framework for doing it. The task of reviewer, writer, and editor are all combined. When I review a paper for a conference or a journal, I simply create a list of things that are wrong with the original. The editor is then responsible for ensuring that the writer corrects these, or justifies not making the corrections. With Wikipedia, I can either make the changes myself (which is hard to do without ending up with an article where the flow is lost by having too many authors) or I can write on the talk page, where it is typically ignored.

If wikipedia allowed people to be assigned reviewer / editor / author rôles to a page, I think it would be much improved. You should not be allowed to fulfil more than one rôle for any given page, and ideally each page should have a small number of authors, one editor, and a large number of reviewers. Every time I've suggested this, however, I've been shouted down.

Re:rubish...

[Jugalator]

There is no way referencing Wikipedia is OK. It's not peer reviewed. Not only is the information often wrong, but the information it does has is very biased (which is OK - all information is biased, but you need to see the whole range). Referencing Wikipedia is like saying "Some random guy on the internet once said...". Not exactly a lot of weight. Most good articles, and all featured articles, on Wikipedia have the information referenced though. And they use to have to pass peer reviews too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Peer_review

Re:rubish...

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet you needed three rolls of tinfoil for a hat like that.

Nope, just one American flag to be wrapped in, like George Bush.

Re:rubish...

[Slurpee]

Wikipedia articles are peer reviewed, but using a different definition - it is not the academic journal version of peer review. Which is my point. And the point of every academic who says you can't cite Wikipedia in your academic discussions.

You can't just redefine what "peer reviewed" means, and then tell people "hey - it's peer reviewed - so accept it".

For what it does - Wikipedia is great. But even Jimmy Wales says (non-junior) students who cite Wikipedia should be failed! Check the article!

Re:rubish...

[rm999]

I feel like I already said this in a comment you replied to, but I'll repeat it for emphasis - you aren't supposed to cite Wikipedia because it is a secondary source, not because it isn't peer reviewed. Britannica should not be cited either, despite the fact that it may be peer reviewed.

Peer review (in the academic sense) in an encyclopedia is unnecessary. An encyclopedia is there to summarize dependable primary sources. The only thing that needs to be checked is if they summarize those sources completely, accurately, and in an unbiased manner.

Re:rubish...

[Andrew Cady]

This criticism is general to information from any source.

Re:rubish...

[Slurpee]

It feels like we are covering the same ground again, so the conversation is probably not worth pursuing much longer.

You are right when you say that Wikipedia is a secondary source and it shouldn't be cited. But not because it is a secondary source. And I agree that you shouldn't cite Britannica, though at least that is under a higher level of scrutiny than Wikipedia.

When you write research papers you quote secondary sources all the time. Seriously. You quote other academics research in a field, and either argue for them, or against them. These are secondary sources, and you need to cite them. But they need to be peer reviewed, or at the very least published by a reputable academic in the field who already has a good reputation.

But anyway - we both agree it shouldn't be cited - but disagree on the reason why.

Re:rubish...

[rm999]

Yeah, you are right - I think I meant to argue that you can't cite Wikipedia/Britannica because they contain no original research. I wrongly assumed that secondary source = no original research. Sorry about that :/

Re:rubish...

[Slurpee]

no worries :-) And thanks for the reply.

Mike

Vandalism is overblown.

[L4m3rthanyou]

I can't stand it when teachers or professors prohibit Wikipedia as a source of accurate information. Of course it's subject to vandalism and other issues, but so is any other source. That is why all research should make use of multiple sources. If something is incorrect in an article, a good researcher will find discrepancies with other info.

Even when it's not allowed as a direct source, Wikipedia is always a great first stop to find more information about something.

Re:Vandalism is overblown.

[cephalien]

I take it you've actually graded assignments where students have been permitted to use wikipedia?

No? Then I suggest you take your smugness elsewhere.

Do you want to know what happens? 9/10ths of them will go to the article they want, read it, change enough so that it's not a direct quote, put it in their assigment, and then put the wikipedia article in the works cited page.

It's a crutch. Pure and simple. If these students read the article, and used it as a springboard to find primary sources to back up those statements, and CITED THOSE, then this wouldn't be an issue. They would also be required to do critical thinking and analysis of the topic -- something that seems to be lacking since I finished my undergraduate work not so many years ago.

Even when I tell them they can't use it, I always get three or four who still try to sneak it by.

Re:Vandalism is overblown.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it's subject to vandalism and other issues, but so is any other source.

Yes, the last time that I read The Art of Computer Programming, it was filled with goatse images.

Re:Vandalism is overblown.

[Kuukai]

Of course it's subject to vandalism and other issues, but so is any other source. Encyclopedia Britannica doesn't triple the number of elephants, proclaim that librarians/Liberians/ libertarians are hiding something, or state that time travel doesn't guarantee your safety. And they don't (as far as I know) have a top brass that subverts the very self-criticism and error-checking that supposedly makes their site great in the first place. They're trying to pin the recent scandal on some sort of elaborate revenge by Overstock.com, but just look at Wikitruth, this is nothing new.

I suppose Wikitruth is also pegged as a conspiracy, but most of their articles are pretty verifiable. For instance, proof of "Jimbo" Wales' utter insanity can be found via the Wayback Machine (if their silence about the matter doesn't say enough).

Wikipedia's Downplayed Because

[phalse phace]

its entries can too easily be cleaned, editted and whitewashed that it can't be trusted as a reliable source of information.

Re:Wikipedia's Downplayed Because

[Auz]

Surely those links show that it is actually less easy to do those things than with another encyclopedia?

Re:Wikipedia's Downplayed Because

[twrake]

[paranoid]
Or could this entire Slashdot post a response to yesterdays... The Registers Exposes More Wikipedia Abuse.

Please ignore yesterdays posts, nothing interesting there...

[/paranoid]

Re:Wikipedia's Downplayed Because

[ShakaUVM]

And biased and slanted and corrupted to whatever editor claims he "owns" the article in question, to the point that while it's editable by everyone, it'll probably just get reverted to make whatever point the owning editor wants it to be.

In this regard, the EB *is* a much more neutral source. You don't see a biography/article which does nothing but trash the person in question, because the editors didn't like him/her. On wikipedia though, this is standard operating procedure.

While I used to really like wikipedia, after seeing all the bullshit that they pull with their little cliques and POV-pushing, I think I'm pretty firmly in the anti-wikipedia camp now. Not that it's not useful, but more that the community is completely batshit insane/dysfunctional.

Hitting a moving target

[ThreeGigs]

Quoted: "students should be able to reference the online encyclopaedia in their work"

The problem there lies in referencing something which is changeable.

You reference it,
Someone edits the article,
Your reference is potentially no longer valid.

Referencing the 2006 edition of Britannica is fairly straightforward.

Referencing the 7:13 AM EST July 24th, 2007 version of a Wiki article on the other hand....

Now, his comment about how Wikipedia should be seen as a 'stepping stone' to other sources is 100% on the mark. Great for a basic understanding and the in-text links to related material make for better overall understanding.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[interiot]

See that "Cite this article" link on the left column of Wikipedia?

Click on it.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[ta bu shi da yu]

That is not accurate. Citing from Wikipedia is actually extraordinarily easy to do. You read some information that is good that you want to reference. You go to the toolbox, then click on "Cite this article".

Example: I read about Krill on Wikipedia. I think the information is well sourced and written. I decide to cite it. I click on "Cite this page", which takes me to this link, which provides me with 7 different citation styles, including APA, MLA, Bluebook and Chicago style citations. If that isn't enough, then I just use the info in the box labelled "Bibliographic details for 'Krill'".

Try doing that with the EB, or in fact any other online journal.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[Just Some Guy]

See that "Cite this article" link on the left column of Wikipedia?

How well does that work when the articles get deleted? If Wikipedia was append-only, sure, but entire articles go missing all too often to ever reliably cite.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[potpie]

Try looking at the "history" tab of the article. Not only can you view the page as it was at that certain time, but you can compare the page with later or newer versions with a special tool that hilights alterations in red.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[ta bu shi da yu]

Not well at all. However, if the article is deleted, then it's probably going to have happened because it wasn't notable enough (yes, very controversial), it probably didn't cite any sources so you'd be an idiot to cite it in the first place, or it was defamatory - in which case, again, you'd be an idiot to cite it in a paper.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[whoever57]

You reference it,
Someone edits the article,
Your reference is potentially no longer valid.

Go to the article's history page and select the appropriate historical version (can be the latest). That way, you get a link to a page that should not change, since it is a link to snapshot in time.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[ta bu shi da yu]

Not to mention that you can also use "Cite this article" in the toolbar box on specific revisions. :-)

Re:Hitting a moving target

[buxton2k]

The parent nailed the real issue with Wikipedia: it's changeable - and that means the student can change it too.

I love Wikipedia - I can spend (waste) hours there. But when I was teaching Public Speaking and Argument These are classes where students needed to provide evidence, but which didn't necessarily demand intense, formal academic research into whatever subject they'd picked to speak or write about. While an encyclopedia might have been sufficient (sometimes) as a source, I never let my students cite it (although invariably many did and I had to mark them down).

There are really two very distinct goals in researching and citing others' works. One is to develop your knowledge, so that what you say is more informed. Wikipedia is great for this, as are other encyclopedias, so long as you don't need to become too specialized an expert.

The second is buttress your opinion and credibility. Citations do this by demonstrating that what you are claiming has been claimed by some credible third party.

When it comes down to the line, in a class setting, it can never be a final citation in and of itself. This is not simply because it is changeable; more significantly, the student him/herself could have changed it to reflect what they want to say. There is simply no way for the teacher to be able to determine this.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[Zibblsnrt]

Or it's about a subject that some "I know nothing about this therefore shouldn't be here" guy stumbled over and stirred up a deletion campaign (or two or three or twenty) out of some misguided spite.

Anyone who claims the only articles on Wikipedia that get deleted are those which 'need' to be needs to lay off the paint chips.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[maxwell demon]

Or is was integrated into another article.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[tepples]

When it comes down to the line, in a class setting, it can never be a final citation in and of itself. This is not simply because it is changeable; more significantly, the student him/herself could have changed it to reflect what they want to say. There is simply no way for the teacher to be able to determine this. Require students to cite a specific version of the article written before the instructor gave the assignment.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[Oligonicella]

...you'd be an idiot to cite it in a paper.

That is sufficient. To provide rationale is superfluous.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[Gloy]

In such cases the page isn't deleted but redirected to the merged article.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[owlnation]

Try looking at the "history" tab of the article.

I would be wiling to bet almost no-one does that. Certainly less than 10% of site visitors, probably more like 1%. It's not a useful system.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[R2.0]

I especially love the disclaimer:

"IMPORTANT NOTE: Most educators and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information -- citing an encyclopedia as an important reference in footnotes or bibliographies may result in censure or a failing grade. Wikipedia articles should be used for background information, as a reference for correct terminology and search terms, and as a starting point for further research. "

So, it's not a proper resource, and it probably will hurt you if you use them, but here are handy pre-packaged citations for you to cut and paste into your paper.

I've always caught a whiff of hypocrisy about Wikipedia - this makes it a stench.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[RealGrouchy]

So, it's not a proper resource, and it probably will hurt you if you use them, but here are handy pre-packaged citations for you to cut and paste into your paper. If you are writing about Wikipedia, I'm sure it would be useful to cite some examples from articles in it.

- RG>

Re:Hitting a moving target

[R2.0]

The example of the citation was the link in the parent post.

As for the hypocrisy, it's less content than methods:
- The "notability" purge, where things like individual high schools were purges - you know, real buildings with real people - but one can find pages and pages of information about fictional characters.
- Wales' statements about "all the world's knowledge" and the notability criteria.
- Wales' defense of the "professor of religion" fraud

And now "Don't use it as a reference, but here's references in pre-printed format" - that's like DARE giving out plans for My First Bong.

Re:Hitting a moving target

[RealGrouchy]

The "you" in my comment was the general "you" not you, the PP. I didn't catch the dual meaning of the way I put it. Sorry about that.

Let me try to put it in a less ambiguous way: people who write (papers, etc.) about Wikipedia would be likely to have specific references that they would need to make about certain Wikipedia articles, and thus the "cite this article" function would be useful to them.

Mind you, this is a very narrow demographic that hardly warrants such a feature, as I do agree with your point.

- RG>

Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[ta bu shi da yu]

This says that Jimbo believes that those teachers who "downplay" Wikipedia are "bad educators". That's not actually what he said!

"You can ban kids from listening to rock 'n' roll music, but they're going to anyway," he added. "It's the same with information, and it's a bad educator that bans their students from reading Wikipedia."

Note that he says this about those who fully ban students from reading Wikipedia. He doesn't say that those who "downplay" the project are bad educators, he says that those who fully ban students from even reading the website are bad. And you know what? He's right, as that's censorship. Those teachers who undertake bans are bad - they do a great disservice to their students. Sure, criticise Wikipedia, but don't ban it! in life students need to be able to read a source critically and at least assess what is being written. Banning it doesn't help build critical faculties. I should also point out that as a first source for information, in general Wikipedia can be really good.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[dangitman]

Note that he says this about those who fully ban students from reading Wikipedia. He doesn't say that those who "downplay" the project are bad educators, he says that those who fully ban students from even reading the website are bad.

But this is a problematic statement, because he's attacking a stawman. Is there any evidence of teachers banning students from simply reading Wikipedia? I know many teachers ban their students from citing Wikipedia, but that's nothing like banning students from reading it. So, who is he referring to?

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[tepples]

Is there any evidence of teachers banning students from simply reading Wikipedia? True, most of these schools just ban students from citing an encyclopedia, but some school districts actually do block access to Wikipedia.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[Per Abrahamsen]

> Is there any evidence of teachers banning students from simply reading Wikipedia?

Yes.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[Anonymous Coward]

This says that Jimbo believes that those teachers who "downplay" Wikipedia are "bad educators". That's not actually what he said!

What? An inaccurate summary on Slashdot? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[mrhartwig]

Is there any evidence of teachers banning students from simply reading Wikipedia?

I have second-hand evidence. My youngest son (high school freshman) has come into the office several times while I was reading something on Wikipedia, and informed me that I shouldn't be reading it because it's always wrong. Granted, I wasn't in the room when the teacher was making his or her statement, so it's possible that my son misinterpreted. He sure as heck misinterprets way to many of *my* statements. :-)

The point, though, is that whatever verb the teacher(s) put into "don't Wikipedia", my son has the impression that he shouldn't it. I've tried to explain the difference; see the last sentence of my first paragraph for results.

He just came in the room, so I asked "What have your teachers told you about Wikipedia?" His answer was that people can put in anything they want, so it's always wrong, and you shouldn't look at it. Still second-hand evidence, but closer to first-hand than my first paragraph.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[TheRaven64]

So, now that you have some evidence that your child's teachers are causing actual harm to his education[1], what do you, as a concerned parent, intend to do about it?

[1] Firstly, by telling him to avoid a source of knowledge, and secondly by avoiding teaching him vital skills in critical thinking.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[dangitman]

No, that's a story about a school blocking access to Wikipedia. It doesn't say that the students were banned from reading it on their own computers at home.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[mrhartwig]

I did this morning exactly what I've been doing -- explaining that teachers, while important, aren't always right. Any more than any other source, including Wikipedia. Of course, he already knows that there's one source(1) that's never wrong, but other than that, he needs to think. I'll keep telling him that until he's too smart to need to listen to me(2)

As for the teacher(s): you ever heard the expression "You can't fight city hall" ?? I'll ask about it next time I'm in for conferences, but I don't really expect to make any headway. This example is hardly the first time a teacher has harmed one of my kids' education, and I don't really expect it to be the last. But that's not *all* bad -- it helps prepare him for the inevitable PHB sometime later in life.

(1) His mother, of course. Certainly not me; just ask his mother. ;-)

(2) Based on previous experience, including my own teenage years, that should be any month now, unfortunately. The good news is that parents get really smart sometime around the kid's sophomore year of college.

Re:Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the same Jimmy Wales who overtly supports banning rafts of IP addresses? The quote above is just too open to comparative reading: "it's the same with information, and it's a bad publisher that bans their audience from reading Wikipedia" where a ban on contributors and divergent views prevents the audience from reading a suitable range of material.

I tell my (undergraduate) students that it's okay to use Wikipedia materials so long as those materials come with a credible reference to other secondary or primary sources. I ask them to critique their source materials, regardless of provenance.

OMG Vandalism!

[4D6963]

and noted that Wikipedia is still prone to vandalism

Yeah, that would suck if because of vandalism on Wikipedia kids wrote in papers that the Earth is the largest planet in the world, or that Mark Taddonio built the pyriamids (sic).

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[SagSaw]

Yeah, that would suck if because of vandalism on Wikipedia kids wrote in papers that the Earth is the largest planet in the world, or that Mark Taddonio built the pyriamids (sic).

And if they did, it would be an excellent opportunity to discuss critical evaluation of an article's claims, the value of having multiple sources, etc.

Wikipedia's value is that it gives the reader a broad overview of a topic and then points the reader (at least in the better articles) to more detailed and authoritative sources.

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[Anonymous Coward]

they also might accidentally include references to FatSlut

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[dangitman]

Earth isn't the largest planet in the world? If you define "the world" as Earth (as most people do), then it definitely is.

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[4D6963]

Earth isn't the largest planet in the world? If you define "the world" as Earth (as most people do), then it definitely is.

O RLY? How insightful! Thanks, Captain Obvious! Obviously it is, but it's an absurd claim, aduh! I didn't claim it was a false claim, only that it was vandalism.

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[owlnation]

"vandalism" (and still waiting for an acceptable definition of that) like that in the parent is not a problem. The real issue is with the subtle changes in historical and political pages. Change one or two words and you can change the whole perception of facts. It's not easy to see those changes, and yet those changes go on all the time on Wikipedia.

And there are admins who are involved in that process. We all know about the Ayn Rand issues here. That's just one example among many.

There is a fundamental lack of trust in the Wikipedia foundation. Any attempts to validate Wikipedia -- like this one -- need to be heavily scrutinized, and rejected until such time as transparency and honesty are part of the Wikimentality (probably never).

If only Wikipedia would stop trying to be important, it would naturally become so over time. It's great for zeitgeist and trivia, but the vanity of Jimmy and his cabal try to push it beyond that. It, thus, becomes less free, less fun, and of less value.

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[4D6963]

I wholeheartedly agree. The real problem with Wikipedia is not the aforementioned type of vandalism, but people pushing their agenda, and as you said actual admins, who do a tremendous job, but who on a few topics push their agenda, sometimes without meeting any resistance, as few people besides the ones trying to push that very agenda care about.

That's what I find profoundly irritating about trying to edit Wikipedia, you can meet topics that are entirely controlled by sorts of special interest groups, in my personal experience that was on afro-centrist topics, only afro-centrists care about these, therefore they control them.

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[Gloy]

"vandalism" (and still waiting for an acceptable definition of that) like that in the parent is not a problem. The definition that Wikipedia and its contributors use is any change that is intentionally unconstructive. Although not strictly included in such a definition, test edits are usually treated in a similar way.

Re:OMG Vandalism!

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not false I don't see why it's an absurd claim. It's a truism, sure, but it's hardly absurd. And since it's not false, I don't see how it's a good example of vandalism. Sure, the article would be better without it. But it doesn't give people false information, remove useful information from the page, or add bias (other than an Earth-centric point-of-view), so I don't see it being a big problem.

When you use a weak example as one of only two citations, it makes it look like you've really only got one example and you're reaching to make it look like a pattern. I know from my own experience that there are other examples of vandalism, but if I hadn't read wikipedia myself your comment sure wouldn't have convinced me that more than a very small portion of articles are vandalized.

Lazy Teachers = Lazy Students

[PolarBearFire]

I use Wikipedia all the time but always with a grain of salt. When you're in college, they should stress more at looking through primary sources of information. People think they're so smart on the internet when they read about scams, corruption and controversy and react with unimformed ideas. Even on Slashdot this is very prevalent where people just react at topic titles, not bothering to take 2 minutes to read through the information. People always complain about the media or politicians influencing the masses. But what about the masses? They only read the shit the media and politicians put out. This is the age of information and almost everything is available online we should better make use of it. There's a growing trend of people spamming Youtube and everywhere else with scientific hoaxes and conspiracy theories. The first few times, I've found them funny, because I can see through them almost immediately and some of them are pretty cleverly done. But then, I found that alot of people were taken by erroneous info. Then I felt very sad indeed.

Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[nweaver]

IS it just me, or is Wikipedia best suited for pulp culture trivia...

Eg, it is a great resource if you want to learn about say, Cop-Tur of the Go-Bots (eg, if you are wondering about a random Robot Chicken episode).

As an academic resource, it is nonciteable and nontrustable, due to the volatile nature and anonymous content.

(Admittedly, I have edited Wikipedia to add corrections. But I would never cite it, but instead use it as a smarter google for some topics)

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[Anonymous Coward]

IS it just me, or is Wikipedia best suited for pulp culture trivia...

It's useless for that because that's the stuff they like to delete. Well, maybe not useless as long as you don't attach any weight whatsoever to a subject not being listed in it.

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[WestCoastJTF]

IS it just me, or is Wikipedia best suited for pulp culture trivia...

Wikipedia sucks for pulp culture trivia. There is a ton of information on 1920s-1950s mystery/sf/adventure magazine short stories that is completely missing.

It's not bad for pop culture trivia, though, but who cares about that crap?

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[NewbieProgrammerMan]

As an academic resource, it is nonciteable and nontrustable, due to the volatile nature and anonymous content.

I can't speak for all "academic" topics, but I find Wikipedia to be extremely reliable on the math topics I've looked up there. Sometimes the Wikipedia article does a better job of explaining a topic than the textbook for which I shelled out $125. Maybe that's a bizarre anomaly caused by a small number of math geeks taking the time to make the articles useful and correct, though. Is it really so unreliable for other topics?

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what I use it for. I've found the "scientific" articles to be VERY uneven. Some of them are quite good, some use very sloppy and imprecise language and look like 40 people edited them (duh). The articles on database theory, for instance, are almost all trash, apparently written by Ruby on Rails programmers or other people who never studied basic database concepts in their life. I was just reading a nutrition-related article that was completely incoherent, with paragraphs contradicting other paragraphs.

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[Zibblsnrt]

I came across one the other day that was written entirely in the second person.

That someone would write a multiparagraph article like that was too weird a thing to even annoy me. I need to find it again..

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Nonciteable and nontrustable it may be (not that those are words), but it's still often a decent place to start, if just to scroll down to the references and external links at the bottom of an entry.

I consider it basically the same as asking a question on Slashdot. You may get lies, stupidity, and egregious stories about pooping in response to your query, but there are generally a few informed people who can at least point you in the right direction.

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[Whacky]

i would agree to nweaver's argument.. moreover feasibility of the encyclopedia is also to be considered..
a guy in africa with would have a better access to a wikipedia rather than the britannica encyclopedia...

wikipedia could be used to do collect information about the old topics.. but for the recent topics [dynamic topics ] it could be used only for the background information

Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture...

[hairykrishna]

No, it's great for a lot of physics too. If the subject you are looking up is complicated enough that making up something remotely realistic seeming is difficult it's an amazing resource.

Wikipedia is not a source that can be trusted

[Anonymous Coward]

I was recently doing research on a composer and thought for interest, I'd read the Wikipedia article. I then checked out the sources and discovered that the sources said the exact OPPOSITE of what the Wikipedia article said.

I also find the articles to be fairly politically charged.

I think that if parents are investing in the internet for their children's education, that they just might be better off investing in a britannica set. Having that quality information right in the home is a really strong statement in support of learning, reading and knowledge.

Re:Wikipedia is not a source that can be trusted

[Anonymous Coward]

And what better way to educate than to provide a constantly evolving set of information that can be referenced in a way as to locate fact and fiction and to distinguish between the two?

Re:Wikipedia is not a source that can be trusted

[Anonymous Coward]

Saying that Wikipedia is useful as a Where's Waldo style 'Fact or Fiction' game is fine, I guess ... but that isn't what Wikipedia is about, and I don't think it's what people are going to Wikipedia to do.

This discussion is about whether Wikipedia should be used as a scholarly source, not as an exercise in finding crappily written articles.

Re:Wikipedia is not a source that can be trusted

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe you. Please, show me. And don't say you fixed it--I want to read the inaccurate version; it can undoubtedly be located in the history tab.

How far along is wikipedia into it's corruption?

[7-Vodka]

It used to be Free and open.

Now it has secret overlords and secret mailing lists.

Anyone notice lately less and less pages can be edited?

How long until the same people who puppet the US mainstream media have total control?
Without TOTAL transparency wikipedia is nothing but a half-rotten corpse.

Not a primary source.

[Inmatarian]

Encyclopedias in general are not allowed to be cited in essays and research papers. They're starting points, providing cursory information on a subject and, at best, giving terms and vocabulary to begin a search into the real meat of the subject.

239 years

[Anonymous Coward]

of smug, inbread, pompousness...

and they're suddenly very afraid. ;)

too bad everybody remembers the study which concluded that their work contains about the same amount of errors as wikipedia. let's see them put their shit online for free...

So if it's paid for, it's 100% accurate?

[Gnea]

I don't think so. Even something as free-formed as wikipedia has caveats as well. Both have their strengths and weaknesses:

- one's free, the other isn't.
- one's updated in the blink of an eye many times to be filtered, altered, retouched, changed and quite possibly modified; the other has to wait a year to be filtered, altered, retouched, changed and quite possibly modified.
- one requires a computer, the other requires a lamp or the sun.
- one weighs many pounds and takes up space, the other can fit in one's pocket without ripping a hole in it.
- one requires an internet connection, the other requires a decent wage.
- one provides faster access to cross-information than the other.
- one provides constant access to information than the other.
- one could break your back, the other could break your carpal tunnel.
- both are enjoyed with a hot cup of coffee or tea.
- both provide the potential to provide the answers that people are looking for.
- both are used extensively whether anyone likes it or not.
- both will continue to be used extensively whether anyone likes it or not.
- anyone that would condone burning either to the ground could be considered to be a nazi.
- the definition of nazi can be found in either one.
- the world will continue to rotate on an axis whether or not either one exists or flourishes.
- one should generate a printed volume, the other should provide an online edition.
- both provide the information required that proves that competition works better than monopolies do in more ways than the other.

Re:So if it's paid for, it's 100% accurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

- one's updated in the blink of an eye many times to be filtered, altered, retouched, changed and quite possibly modified; the other has to wait a year to be filtered, altered, retouched, changed and quite possibly modified.
- one requires a computer, the other requires a lamp or the sun.
- one weighs many pounds and takes up space, the other can fit in one's pocket without ripping a hole in it.
- one provides faster access to cross-information than the other.
- one could break your back, the other could break your carpal tunnel.
- one should generate a printed volume, the other should provide an online edition.

Uh, apparently you've been living in a fucking bubble, because Britannica already has an online edition, and they have had a regularly updated online edition for years.

Re:So if it's paid for, it's 100% accurate?

[Anonymous Coward]

One is written by imperfect humans, and the other is writen by imperfect humans.

Re:So if it's paid for, it's 100% accurate?

[cashman73]

"the other can fit in one's pocket without ripping a hole in it."

I don't know many people that walk around with the latest copy of Encyclopedia Brittanica in their pocket? "Excuse me, sir? But is that an encyclopedia in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

Re:So if it's paid for, it's 100% accurate?

[Teancum]

BTW, have you seen the size of a full data dump of the English Wikipedia?

It would fill much more than a typical thumb drive, and that is just the text alone. Add in the images, and you have many GB worth of data. I would be very surprised if you could fit all of that information onto a palm-sized device that could "fit in your pocket" (the iPhone connected to the 'net not withstanding).

Re:So if it's paid for, it's 100% accurate?

[Aluvus]

Britannica already provides an online edition, the free version of which includes only a subset of their content. The pay version ($70/year) apparently includes everything from the print encyclopedia as well as some other materials. There is a print version of the German Wikipedia, and there have been various (failed, AFAIK) efforts to create a print version of the English Wikipedia.

This is interesting...

[ta bu shi da yu]

The BBC says that "Mr Allgar pointed out the trustworthy nature of paid-for, thoroughly-reviewed content, and noted that Wikipedia is still prone to vandalism ... but Britannica and Wikipedia should not be seen as direct competitors. Wikipedia, he said, had made the use of encyclopaedias "trendy and popular" with young people, which could only benefit Britannica's subscription-led service."

That's a new tack! This has basically been the same thing that the WMF has been saying for years now ("Wikipedia, and all Wikimedia Foundation projects, are not in competition to EBI or other companies in the business of reference works. Our goals differ significantly from other reference publishers, and only overlap in that we are all striving to create accurate and useful knowledge tools.")

Is this a turning point in relations between the two projects? Are we going to see an end to the stupidity of Robert McHenry style "toilet" comparisons?

Re:This is interesting...

[DerekLyons]

It's not a new tack at all - whenever Wikipedia gets a run of bad publicity, Jimbo trots out his "oh, we are just some website, not really an encyclopedia" humble pie. He'll soon be back to discussing the how the release version of Wikipedia will wipe out all existing encyclopedias.

Re:How far along is wikipedia into it's corruption

[zymano]

I agree. I was labeled a vandalist for adding some info on a new entry. That made less interested in the future of wikipedia.

I think wikipedia is becoming a tool of propagandists and commercial interests. Alot of stupid entries like one for some Taco restuarant. Dumb.

So many times when people fight technology

[rolfwind]

those people show themselves to be irrelevant to the younger audience (in perception). Also, they are not engaging the students in a meaningful way and don't overcome the myth that the "old school" methods are all outdated and worthless.

I often think wikipedia is an excellent source in itself and for deeper knowledge, a reasonable starting point. Too often, the oft-heard admonishment "dig deeper!" does not always apply to students using wikipedia as their single source for a report, but also by the teachers criticizing wikipedia - usually they scan the surface of one edit of one article to look for those errors - while wholly ignoring the revealing and complete log of wikipedias discussions and history behind that single article. Behind that one surface, you get most of the interesting parts of a subject -- the common misunderstandings, misperceptions, and myths. The genuine points of contention and controversy and the gray areas where the truth is not wholly understood or available.

Instead, teachers indulge of what they criticize in their students - intellectual lethargy. Personally, I like what this professor is doing with wikipedia:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071030-prof-replaces-term-papers-with-wikipedia-contributions.html

It's about the smartest embrace of wikipedia I have seen so far.

Oh, the irony...

[Z80xxc!]

There have been two articles this week about Wikipedia's politics and internal ring of over-powered admins. And then Jimbo Wales tells us that students should use Wikipedia. Are they running out of people to block, is that the problem? Add some student users, then we can block them, too!

Re:Oh, the irony...

[palegray.net]

If Wikipedia strikes them down now, they shall become more powerful than you can imagine.

Re:Oh, the irony...

[Lehk228]

if wikipedia strikes them down they will be legion, they will not forgive, they will become horrible uncaring monsters, and they will still deliver.

No conflict of interest here, of course.

[palegray.net]

I'm sure the folks over at Encyclopedia Britannica are yielding only their highly objective, unbiased opinion on the matter... this is somewhat reminiscent of a certain large software company's "Get the Facts" campaign against a competing family of operating systems.

Re:No conflict of interest here, of course.

[Achromatic1978]

Whereas, of course, Jimbo Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and the for profit enterprise Wikia, at least we know he has no vested interested in selling the benefits of his works over EB, right?

Wait, what?

Self inflicted Vandalism Based On What We Read

[Anonymous Coward]

Based on what we have been reading about Wikipedia, it sounds like a significant amount of what is wrong is propagated by the editors. I used to look to it for useful information on specific subjects. Not any more. They have convinced me that they are more interested in advancing a point of view than valid information.

Inaccurate article

[Titoxd]

Straight from the horse's mouth: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Jimbo_Wales&diff=prev&oldid=176450863

I don't know if there is a video or audio anywhere, but I said basically the same things that I always say. If you have seen any of my speeches where I address these questions, well, I said what I always say. (Basically, teachers can use wikipedia as a teaching opportunity to help students better assess information sources. Wikipedia has strengths and weaknesses. An outright ban is silly... you can tell students not to listen to rock and roll music, too. But accepting wikipedia as a citable source is not really right either.)--Jimbo Wales 22:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC) Which is true. Citing Wikipedia as a source is stupid. Checking Wikipedia for sources, in the other hand, is not that bad of an idea.

Never consider any Encyclopedia to be reliable

[Anonymous Coward]

Past middle school it is unacceptable to use any encyclopedia as a source. With very few exceptions.

1. A source for general information on a subject, to find other avenues of research.

2. If the encyclopedia lists sources, then as a tool for finding primary information.

For this, both the Britannica and Wikipedia are equal in accuracy, but should be trusted no further, and should never be cited as supporting information.

Re:Never consider any Encyclopedia to be reliable

[Anonymous Coward]

And that begs the question: are you referring to public or private middle school?

If I let you in you'll sell me encyclopedias

[Dachannien]

I find this sketch particularly apropos somehow. (Or this while it lasts.)

Source criticism

[sd.fhasldff]

One of the most important lessons students can learn pre-college is, in my opinion, source criticism (a term which is unfortunately used mainly in a biblical context, which is NOT my usage here).

"A critical mind is a questioning mind" is a good lesson and should be taught at every level of education.

Virtually all sources are biased, in one way or another, and students need to be aware of this and treat the information in a manner befitting the source.

Wikipedia is just another source (not a primary one, of course, with a few exceptions) and should be treated like every other secondary source - with skepticism. The fortunate thing about Wikipedia - and one that makes it a much better secondary source than most others - is that there are abundant links to other sources (although not necessarily primary sources, which would be preferable).

Additionally, Wikipedia enables one to view the version history and a discussion of the article in question. This discussion can often be used to discern if there are any particular points of contention that one should be aware of. This shouldn't replace ones critical view of "accepted facts", of course.

In practice, we are inundated with such an overwhelming amount of "news", "facts" or interpretations of same, that we cannot possibly be highly critical of every single item. Instead we rely on the reputation of the source. It is important, however, that we routinely question the reputation of the source.

For teachers to ignore Wikipedia does not seem particularly insightful and one has to wonder whether the teachers in question are the same authoritarian breed of teachers that can wreck havoc on a young mind.

Re:Source criticism

[Carthag]

Honestly you're right. Just teach kids source criticism.

Re:How far along is wikipedia into it's corruption

[Lehk228]

if your company has financial dealings with wikimedia suddenly whole sections of WP: don't apply to you. conflicts of interest are OK, non-notable articles are great, and editwarring anyone who points this out will get them banned not you.

Look shiny stuff!

[conares]

/me sez students should shut up in class and do their homework...but hey, thats just /me

In other news...

[VGPowerlord]

In other news, Steve Ballmer thinks Students 'Should Use' Windows.

A librarian's perspective

[smurgy]

As a professional-level librarian I often Wikipedia as a starting source for research - far more than I would use Britannica, especially the print edition.

They both have their strengths and weaknesses - vandalism and the wars that rage over obscure topics being Wikipedia's (how many serious reference queries begin with the question "Did Jimmy Wales really market softcore porn"?). The big fault with Britannica is rather more serious - Britannica is appalling for currency. Why? Apart from the fact that Wikipedia relies on fanatics of various sorts who provide up-to-the-minute information (which is then edited by more moderate types interested in maintaining balance and so on) Britannica must operate from a fixed budget out of which it can pay a comparitively far more limited range of editors. That article you're looking at in Britannica could easily be 10 years out of date or more if it's at that end of its review cycle.

Clearly this means that for the researcher who is using a "starter" source, they can get a more accurate quick coverage of the salient details (and particularly keywords which are of fundamental use in starting a new path of research) out of Wikipedia which they can then use to embark on more detailed exploration.

In essence Britannica is an altar to worship at; Wikipedia is a hack, and a damn good one - when used intelligently, as all good hacks are.

"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[cattywhumpus]

Stuff and nonsense. Tests have shown that Wikipedia is about as reliable as the Brittanica. I myself found multiple errors in the edition of EB I owned, including a spectacularly misidentified orchid genus in a photograph. Wikipedia gets it accuracy by a completely different method than a conventional enecyclopedia, but it works and apparently works about as well. This is something that the Brittanica and others simply can't get their heads around and it leads them to some very silly statements. Now please note neither an encyclopedia or Wikipedia is considered an authorative source for serious (ie, grown-up) research. They are both however good at getting you oriented and giving you places to start. My EB? Went to Goodwill long ago. I can get far more current, and more accurate, information off the web (not from Wikipedia) -- provided of course I exercise a little critical analysis.

Re:"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[nagora]

I myself found multiple errors in the edition of EB I owned, including a spectacularly misidentified orchid genus in a photograph.

And if you alerted them they would fix it and IT WOULD STAY FIXED forever. WP just churns hearsay and opinion in with the corrections in an ever-changing mix. There is no value in such a mess at all. Nothing can be relied on and what accuracy there is is purely accidental and impossible to find.

Many pages that do not change are stable simply because would-be correctors have given up trying to win edit wars with the Wikielite who have friends among (or are) the adminstrators and can win any debate by locking or banning.

TWW

Re:"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[Gloy]

If you found an error in a printed encyclopedia and alerted them, it would be fixed in the next edition, in perhaps five years or so. If you found the error in Wikipedia you could fix it yourself there and then and, despite your claim, it would in all likelihood remain fixed, essentially, forever. Yes, it could be subject to transient vandalism, which would be reverted within seconds or sometimes even milliseconds.

Your claim that it is "impossible to find" accuracy is simply hyperbole. Read the main page right now; it tells you that "krill are shrimp-like marine invertebrate animals", which is true, that December 8 is Constitution Day in Romania, which is true, and that some guy has just shot a bunch people at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska, which is, sadly, true. I just hit the "Random article" button and was told that "Stanford in the Vale is a large village with approximately 2,000 residents situated in the Vale of White Horse, Oxfordshire, England.", which is also true. While there are many errors, they nevertheless account for a very, very small proportion of the entire work.

Re:"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[nagora]

If you found an error in a printed encyclopedia and alerted them, it would be fixed in the next edition, in perhaps five years or so.

Or their next DVD edition in 6 months or immediately in their on-line version.

If you found the error in Wikipedia you could fix it yourself there and then and, despite your claim, it would in all likelihood remain fixed, essentially, forever.

Speaking from experience that just isn't the case.

Your claim that it is "impossible to find" accuracy is simply hyperbole.

When you have no way to distinguish something from its surroundings then it's impossible to find, or even know that it's there. When no one is responsible for making sure that it is there, there's no reason to assume that it is.

TWW

Re:"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[cattywhumpus]

"And if you alerted them they would fix it and IT WOULD STAY FIXED forever. " Well, no. This is a printed book, remember? The errors are permanent for that edition -- which as I recall lasted for about 20 years. They published supplements, but they did not publish errata. You want to talk about a small elite clique? Try the EB organization and the scholars they favored. They were notorious as far back as the 1950s. (Well, notorious within restricted circles anyway.) And as for accuracy -- tests have shown that on the whole Wikipedia is about as accurate as the EB. They both have problems, but of different sorts. One of the things that drives this argument is that most people simply aren't aware of the problems with printed reference books, especially things like encyclopedias. People are aware of the problems with Wikipedia because, like everything else about it, its problems are public. In the age of blogs they have a much tougher time hiding them than the Encyclopedia Brittianica did in the 20th Century. The truth is that you have always needed to read critically to do research. That's never going to change.

Re:"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[cattywhumpus]

>If you found an error in a printed encyclopedia and alerted them, it would be fixed in the >next edition, in perhaps five years or so. >Or their next DVD edition in 6 months or immediately in their on-line version. Not on your say-so they won't. If you're lucky they may decide to pursue your claim. Or not.

Re:"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[nagora]

Not on your say-so they won't. If you're lucky they may decide to pursue your claim. Or not.

The same can be said of WP. If a WP article has "This is part of the Wiki... project" at the top of it then it has already been grabbed by a self-selecting elite and outsiders will be very lucky to get any changes made. In some cases experts are specifically banned on the grounds that they are experts. That's no way to run anything let alone an encyclopedia. In any case, the ability to get edits to stick is very clearly proportional to how much spare time you have. I've given up on several edit-wars simply because I haven't got time to spend arguing with some ill-informed unemployed eejit in another timezone who is determined to get his/her interpretation of something in no matter how long it takes.

WP is simply a flawed model of how to accumulate a tertiary reference work, coupled by gross hypocracy at the top of the organisation. It's fine as a sort of semi-permanent Usenet, and has all the strengths and weaknesses of Usenet as a place to get facts from too.

TWW

Re:"Reliability" of Encyclopedia Brittanica

[cattywhumpus]

Let me repeat: No reference source is perfect and none is to be completely trusted. That's where critical reading, and critical thinking, come in. However on the evidence, Wikipedia is about as good as the EB (which, by the way, is not the top-rated encyclopedia).

I consider citing Wikipedia okay...

[r6144]

...if the student can understand the stuff on Wikipedia but the primary source is too difficult for him. It's not good to cite an encyclopedia, but it is at least better than citing something you don't properly understand.

Re:I consider citing Wikipedia okay...

[Tony Hoyle]

If you cite wikipedia:

1. You haven't done your research and have no idea whether the article is correct or written by a 12 year old with an editing fetish.
2. If it's OK today it could be complete bullshit tomorrow, and your quote will be seen to be *not* in the original article.

Re:I consider citing Wikipedia okay...

[Beetle B.]

2. If it's OK today it could be complete bullshit tomorrow, and your quote will be seen to be *not* in the original article. Not a valid concern. Wikipedia has a "cite this article" link that will cite the particular version of that page. If someone changes the content, and the teacher decides to check the citation, he/she will see exactly what the student saw.

Re:I consider citing Wikipedia okay...

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless Scientologist Jimmy comes along and oversights the page. Then it's just gone with no explanation or history.

Re:How far along is wikipedia into it's corruption

[Zibblsnrt]

Anyone notice lately less and less pages can be edited?

Now that you mention it I am kind of curious as to what percentage of the pages are locked or under some other kind of protection policy. Anyone have those numbers?

The smart way to cite Wikipedia

[SamP2]

It's no secret that many teachers and profs dislike WP. This is what I do when I need research:

1. Go to WP and look up the subject
2. Visit the references of the article
3. Use those references in my work, quoting directly from them
4. Cite those references in my work
5. Never cite Wikipedia

This way, I achieve:

1. Making it seem like I did an assload of research on my own, with lots of good sources cited. WP does most of the work for me in not only providing reasonably realiable sources (well, most of the time), but also due to NPOV policies I can get sources which are from different perspectives, and offer a comprehensive coverage of citations in my own work.
2. Didn't mention the Wikipedia they don't want to see
3. No plagiarism, since I didn't quote anything from WP itself but only from the sources it used. Everything I did followed the letter of academic honesty, if not the spirit.

Re:The smart way to cite Wikipedia

[Beetle B.]

1. Making it seem like I did an assload of research on my own, with lots of good sources cited. WP does most of the work for me in not only providing reasonably realiable sources (well, most of the time), but also due to NPOV policies I can get sources which are from different perspectives, and offer a comprehensive coverage of citations in my own work.
2. Didn't mention the Wikipedia they don't want to see
3. No plagiarism, since I didn't quote anything from WP itself but only from the sources it used. Everything I did followed the letter of academic honesty, if not the spirit. And I'm fairly sure the professors are just fine with your strategy. I'm amused at your point 1: Teachers don't care (or at least good ones don't) if you spent a lot of time looking up references. They just care that you can find them - not how long it took.

And they don't really have a problem with you using Wikipedia towards this end. Why should they?

I can tell you don't understand why they don't allow citing Wikipedia articles. You seem to be looking at these assignments as a chore: Do X amount of work to get final product - the grade. The issue is one of trust and reliable sources. Wikipedia is a source, in a manner of speaking. But so is the gossip at the party I went to last night. That party had lots of smart people, so if someone disagreed with someone else, he would argue with them, and occasionally come up with a "reference" to back himself up. But one accurate view did not get the support of the majority of the members in that party. So the final erroneous verdict was that it wasn't true.

That's all Wikipedia is: A very structured conversation among a large number of people, with some rules which aren't always followed or applied. And it's that last bit of unequally applying the rules that worries everyone. It has its uses, for sure.

But hey, would you find the following scenario acceptable? A student cites a Wikipedia article. The teacher goes to it, clicks on the "discussion" page, and finds a lot of the cited material being disputed (and was so at the time of the citation). Can the teacher penalize the student because in a sense, the source does not agree with what the student claimed?

Re:The smart way to cite Wikipedia

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Teachers don't care (or at least good ones don't) if you spent a lot of time looking up references. They just care that you can find them - not how long it took.

That's the way it should be; I'm not sure it generally is. Hven't there been a couple of stories on /. recently about schools actually blocking access to Wikipedia from school computers because they don't want students using it at all, even to find citeable sources? I think there's an innate conservatism on the part of some teachers that says, in essence, "When I was a student I had to go to the library and dig through the stacks to find this information, so you should too." And while it's certainly true that good teachers don't think this way, it's in the nature of organizational politics that it's often the bad ones who put the time and effort into getting themselves into positions where they have the authority to make policy.

Re:The smart way to cite Wikipedia

[Beetle B.]

Perhaps - I was referring to university-level professors.

Peer review

[McDutchie]

It's not peer reviewed.

I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed?

You're kidding... right?

Just in case you're not, you might want to read about peer review (at Wikipedia, of all places) as you don't seem to have a clue what it is...

Wikipedia can misappropriate the term "peer review" for itself all it wants, but that doesn't make it peer reviewed.

Re:Peer review

[jacquesm]

the word 'peer' means someone more or less at the same level of knowledge as you. Since wikipedia is not reviewed (or written) by people that have to have any qualifications you can not be sure that the reviewer knew as much of the subject matter as they would have to if they were to review a paper on the subject for some fancy dead-tree magazine.

I could review an article about anything on wikipedia and if I would be verbally skillful enough or had a 'clique' around me of supporting wikipedians (who may know even less about the subject) then I could probably get away with that.

So, no, wikipedia is not peer reviewed.

Funny thing: wikipedia is against the publishing of 'original research' so fanatically *because* they are not peer reviewed.

If they would be then it would be a fine place to publish such research. After all, whether something is original or not hardly matters, what matters is if it is based on solid science and if it is right and true.

Every now and then wikipedia is hugely embarrassed because some yokel that has been the wikipedia authority on some matter or other owns up to having read the 'for dummies' book on the subject and has been social engineering his own reputation.

Re:Peer review

[ceoyoyo]

Wikipedia IS peer reviewed. The problem is who the peers (and by the definition of peer, who the writers) are.

On the other hand, textbooks ALSO aren't peer reviewed, neither in the journal paper sense nor in the wikipedia sense.

German Wikipedia better than printed encyclopedia

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an article in the current issue of the German magazine Stern about a comparison between articles in the German Wikipedia and the Brockhaus (a renowned German encyclopedia) done by a research institute. Surprisingly (well, not for everyone), almost all tested articles in Wikipedia were better then their equivalents in Brockhaus.

See http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/153663.html

Personal experience...

[3seas]

Someone started an article on me. It was wrong but stayed for over a year I think.

I found it and added some references to information that others might see past the usenet troll and flamer bias that was indirectly referenced in the article.
I then started up another article to further clarify the subject matter for which the bias in the article on myself was centered around.

It went up for deletion and realizing the negativity bias of Wikipedia I called upon the usenet trolls and flamers against me to contribute to the discussion with the bias of removing both articles.
Both articles were deleted. I'd decided I'd rather not be mentioned, nor do I need such unfairly biased publicity by being listed in Wikipedia.

I recently discovered even more unfair bias towards someone who is no longer alive to defend themselves. The article contains half truths and outright lies.
This persons certainly has more public status than I, but I will not mention who they are but rather collect up references not found on the internet that expose the unfair bias of wikipedia and share it with real people in real time, so that they can see how cleverly corrupt wikipedia really is.

Wikipedia is built upon hearsay, upon what they call as "references". That's its rules and done so in order to remove RESPONSIBILITY. Put the blame on the reference,
and we all know how much crap is on the internet. This is where the references must be found and be kinda be accessible, as wikipedia does not verify all references regularly and many become broken.
They pick and chose which things they reference off the internet and tend to bias on the negative by the weakness of facts the nature of the machine the internet is and likewise wikipedia is.

So they find the opinions of others written somewhere on the internet and they have their references. Hearsay is not allowed in court, facts are.

Wikipedia is not based on facts, its based on hearsay and THEY DO NOT HAVE THE PROPER RESOURCES TO DO UNBIASED RESEARCH and they never will.

I expect Wikipedia to be very capable of writing the next bible.

Wikipedia needs a "in your face" disclaimer on every article and every page.

Re:Personal experience...

[owlnation]

Wikipedia needs a "in your face" disclaimer on every article and every page.

Yes. Absolutely it very much does. I have to ask the question, why does it not have a disclaimer?

A disclaimer is honest, fair and responsible. It would deter "vandalism", while in NO WAY detracting from the integrity or utility of Wikipedia.

So again, why no disclaimer? What are they trying to achieve/hide by misleading people?

There is no ethical reason NOT to have a disclaimer.

Re:Personal experience...

[Teancum]

Articles about living people do tend to have some substantial problems, and as a rule I stay away from them as much as I can...and treat the information on those kind of pages with a grain of salt (perhaps a whole shaker).

Still, I can understand why you feel upset when you find information that you know for a fact is inaccurate...particularly when it is about yourself.

IMHO Wikipedia has its strength in articles about technology and science, where there are resources available to do unbiased research and "facts" can be independently verified. Articles about pop culture and living people (like yourself) tend to be much weaker as there often aren't real sources for the information except for occasional news stories that in themselves have biases and shortcomings. In reading some of the historical editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, I wouldn't say that unbiased articles about living people is any worse today than it was 100 years ago, and may in fact be slightly better in that people are aware of the biases instead of simply relying upon "authority" to get it correct.

specific cliques of bias at Wikipedia

[harvey the nerd]

I do enjoy reading various Wikipedia articles for background. However, I notice that the health and medical articles seem to be heavily biased and dominated by 1950s AMA type doctors, oncologists and pharmaceutical interests - some outright shills, employees, even their lawyers. Similarly other science areas sometimes seem dominated by current-popular-fad academics with severe conflicts of interest to their grant process, where their research methodology actually has more valid scientific criticism than validation.

Wikipedia is OK for basic information, but...

[w4rl5ck]

... the whole internet, including blogs and wikipedia, should not be used as scientific reference, as long as the authors are anonymous, and there sources are not shown. As with ANY OTHER source you might use in your paper/thesis. Why?

When using anything for citation, you need to make absolutely sure, that your sources are valid and not just some made-up story of creationists or school boys from Wisconsin (nothing against Wisconsin ;))

Recently, a big scientific magazin (Nature?) officially withdrawed an article about creationism and genetic development from the 50ths (because the author wanted them to do so), because it has been misused by creationists as a "scientific proof" for their theories. (sorry, no reference ;))

So what? Well, it shows the importance of PROPER citation references. If you want to state something, you need proof. Either, you can proof it yourself and write about your personal experience ("damn YES 110V AC *DO* hurt so DON'T touch the wires"), or you need a reference to someone who had that personal experience (or, in theoretical environments, shares your opinion).

Creationists misused this article (which contained some statements not considered valid anymore even by the author himself, time can change "reality" perception), while any other scientific source simply said (or proofed) the OPPOSITE meaning. The article itself was not the problem, but the unchecked - or in this case, I think, biased - usage of the contents.

If a wikipedia article has a good "foundation", say, external citation references that can be followed and point to qualified research documents or other sources which are again based on "proper" information, the information in the article can be, as with every other information re-used in a scientific article, *validated*, and used without any complaints.

But if the article just STATES something, without proof or reference, one should definitely check for other sources, either supporting or invalidating the article.

It's not that much different from other references you use. If you just dig up some crackpot thesis from the 30ths and use it without checking for other publications or statements about the topic, you might simply use false information, invalidating your own work.

That's about it, in fact, is has not much to do with "wikipedia can be edited by anyone" - it's just about proper scientific work.

Oh, and schools should not be babbling about whether or not "wikipedia is bad", but teach proper scientific (and social) skills.

Paid-for == trustworthy?? Since when?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does paying for stuff guarantee it's trustworthy? Every media channel - and indeed every product - lies somewhere along a gradient of trustworthiness. Even with a reputable institution like the BBC, you have to take some account of its lefty bias. And I'm satisfied that they try quite hard to be impartial. Other publishers, drug companies, software companies, manufacturers, snake oil merchants, and so forth need to be accorded varying degrees of trust, and Wikipedia is just another point on the scale. Having used it, contributed to it, and seen how long my contributions have lasted - and on which topics - I think I have at least some idea how much trust to accord it. But that varies a lot - particularly for anything remotely contentious, I'd start by looking at the talk and history to see what editing activity has gone on over the life of the article. With that caveat, and given my minority interests, Wikipedia is probably a more reliable and trustworthy organ than, say, Fox News or the Microsoft propaganda machine.

Re:Paid-for == trustworthy?? Since when?

[Teancum]

In defense of Encyclopaedia Britannica, they did hire some of the very best scholars over the years that included Nobel Prize laureates and well respected authors and educators to help compile their content. Some of the authors involved are nearly a "who's who" of the best of the writing world, science, and theology.

Still, I would have to say that there still are bias even to this particular reference work, and it has its own limitation, including inaccuracies. To suggest that one is better than the other is just squabbling over details.

The assholes have definitely taken over

[CowardX10]

My friend who used to contribute a lot in terms of articles and even money decided to stop because the deletionist assholes made it such a pain for him that he now despises the site. And although almost none of his contributions were deleted, he hated the way half his time was spent arguing with deletors about his work.

Even Jimbo Whales has experienced this. He started an article on Mzoli's Meats , a butcher shop and restaurant in South Africa. When it was almost speedily deleted, he told the deletors to "excuse themselves from the project and find a new hobby.". In other words, get a life and stop ruining the project. Unfortunately, a bunch of editors added information to the article so it's now kept, and Jimbo doesn't have to confront either the bitterness many have felt in getting their work destroyed or remaking policy so that people like my friend would continue contributing.

These asshole admins are really making Wikipedia a crappy site, and their effect on valuable editors is worse than what any nasty vandal might do since admins are part of the power hierarchy. This is another valuable lesson in what happens when you give thoughtless small minded people a little power. They make their pronouncements and mass annihilations without any consideration on what the effect might be on a person who has spent sometimes hundreds of man hours creating, maintaining, and protecting his/her articles. They dismiss people by spouting some arbitrary interpretation of policy backed up by their cabals, while those who have better things to do like actually create content get fucked over. James Derk of The Daily Southtown wrote an article where he talks about having a similar experience.

Also, here's a good Slashdot thread illustrating the intellectual dishonesty of the deletionist admins. It is part of the Slashdot story Call For Halt To Wikipedia Webcomic Deletions which is filled with former contributors testifying to their own treatment at the hands of these assholes. It's sad how some people seem to really get off on destroying the work of others.

I think it's interesting how when I don't know about a subject, editing an article on it would be considered vandalism. But it's perfectly OK for the deletors to destroy work relating to things they often know nothing about. Sometimes they even use their very ignorance as justification.

I think it's interesting how when I don't know about a subject, editing an article on it would be considered vandalism. But it's perfectly OK for the deletors to destroy work relating to things they often know nothing about. Sometimes they even use their very ignorance as justification.

I think Wikipedia has a choice right now. Allow a lot more in than they are currently doing and piss off the deletionists, or let these deletionists have their way and piss off the content creators(And I should add, it's not only deleted articles that are targeted, but plot synopses, trivia sections, clearly permissible images, etc. have all succumbed to the slash and burn mentality of these deletionists.). So Jimbo, who would you rather keep around?

Re:The assholes have definitely taken over

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's interesting how when I don't know about a subject, editing an article on it would be considered vandalism. But it's perfectly OK for the deletors to destroy work relating to things they often know nothing about. Sometimes they even use their very ignorance as justification.

I think it's interesting how when I don't know about a subject, editing an article on it would be considered vandalism. But it's perfectly OK for the deletors to destroy work relating to things they often know nothing about. Sometimes they even use their very ignorance as justification. Paste in haste, repent at leisure... (Good post, though) 8)

Re:The assholes have definitely taken over

[TheRaven64]

Interesting link. I noticed a 'trivia sections considered harmful' (or whatever it says) box today for the first time and was really surprised since I've read a lot of trivia sections on Wikipedia and generally found them to be interesting and informative.

The second comment was also of interest to me. A few months ago, the Wikipedia entry for my university's computer society was deleted (the society, among other things, was responsible for the original TCP/IP stack in Linux, and was present in the boot credits until a couple of years ago) as being non-notable. This was the second time it was nominated for deletion. The first time, it was voted down. The second time, it was also voted down but votes from members and former members of the society were discounted. Does Wikipedia keep track of the number of unique visitors to each page? If they are going to delete stuff (and I'm still not convinced of the rationale behind this) then I would have thought interest would be a better criterion than notability.

where you can cite yourself?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't stand it when teachers or professors prohibit Slashdot as a source of accurate information. Of course it's subject to vandalism and other issues, but so is any other source. That is why all research should make use of multiple sources. If something is incorrect in a post, a good researcher will find discrepancies with other info.

Even when it's not allowed as a direct source, Slashdot is always a great first stop to find more information about something.

Re:where you can cite yourself?

[Gloy]

If every Wikipedia article started with the words "Frist post!!!111oneone", contained a goatse link, several copy-and-paste trolls, at least three overused memes and a load of comments making bad analogies, your comparison might be valid.

Re:where you can cite yourself?

[tgv]

Holy Guacamoly! Since when is Phys.Rev.A open to vandalism? On the other hand, quite a few of Wikipedia's more technical entries seem to have been edited rather badly, and I've seen someone used one of them for the introduction of an article, without checking the f*kcing original source. And no, I'm not going to correct Wikipedia, since that will only give a false sense of correctness. Students and researchers should consult authoritative resources, not one that's just good enough for a quick curiosity search.

In use here.

[lattyware]

In our school, 'Research something' means 'go on wikipedia and search for it' now-a-days. That's what everyone does. I generally don't do it just to get information everyone else has not got. Wikipedia makes finding information extremely easy. I think that if Encyclopedia Britannica put an online version up with a good search (might exist, I don't know) and advertised it a little, they'd get just as many people using it. It's ease of use over the ideals behind Wikipedia - I don't think 99% of my school has ever contributed something.

I've said it before and I'll say it again

[mdarksbane]

The problem isn't children citing wikipedia. The problem is lazy teachers and lazy students accepting Britannica as a reference to begin with.

An encyclopedia of any source should be the start of your research, not the end of it. It gives you the keywords and background necessary to find the real information from a primary source.

conventional wisdom

[djfake]

Wikipedia is conventional wisdom. Up until this last century, the majority of wisdom was passed orally and is an interpretation of events - even photographs, film can be edited etc - and none of that means the author necessarily got everything correct, unbiased, etc.; only that they took the time to record it for posterity. Who wrote books? Monks? Those employed by the king? church? government?

We have no way of verifying history until the way back machine is invented. Oh Mr. Peabody...

Drinking his own Kool-Aid?

[bball99]

I'm sure it tastes good, but shouldn't Wales be concentrating more on fixing WP's more recent PR problems?

(and no, i don't think i'd tell my students to use WP as a starting point or primary source)

As a former Britannica customer

[wikinerd]

I gave up my paid Britannica online access, and I have found the wiki model to work better for encyclopedias or any other kind of work. I do cite wikis regularly, including Wikipedia, albeit I do have my own criticisms for it.

Re:nope

[Oligonicella]

The magnitude of the error is grossly different. While the Encyclopedia may give a date or location incorrectly, the Wikipedia will have wholesale fabrications designed to convey bogus meaning.

No contest as to which is the more reliable reference.

Next interview

[commodoresloat]

They ask Bill Joy and Richard Stallman which text editor is better, emacs or vi.

You should read the article before calling rubbish

[Per Abrahamsen]

Jimmy Wales explicitly talks about "young students" (as opposed to "academics").

University students should obviously quote research papers and other primary sources, and not Encyclopedia of any kinds.

But using Wikipedia as a "stepping stone to other sources" as Wales also suggest is applicable to everyone, which means Wikipedia is far more useful than traditional encyclopedia at academic institutions.

The Whiners...

[flajann]

I have to look at anyone as crazy who would suggest that students shouldn't use Wikipedia. If someone sees something inaccurate in Wikipedia, they should just go in and fix the inaccuracy (and cite their sources), instead of the whining. Wikipedia then becomes stronger as far as accurate, unbiased content is concerned.

I think many of the whiners have not bothered using Wikipedia themselves, really. They are just parroting the whines of others. Kinda sad.

I am proud of my contribution to Wikipedia, though I need to do some work on it. Just search for "Gravity Set" there, if you are interested.

The focus should not be on whether or not something is "authoritative", but accurate Authorities have been known to miss the mark more times than not, and usually the process of fixing authoritative inaccuracies involved pulling teeth. With the Wikis, all you have to do is go in and fix it yourself!

Alas, I am preaching to the choir.

Re:The Whiners...

[Anonymous Coward]

If someone sees something inaccurate in Wikipedia, they should just go in and fix the inaccuracy (and cite their sources)

Been there, done that. Sometimes it gets reverted again by an idiot, and nobody watching the article knows enough about the topic to notice that the person who reverted it was an idiot. Then the correction that you took the time to make is buried in the article history under a hundred bot edits. And this isn't exactly about controversial stuff either. I've had basic elementary facts reverted, grammatical fixes reverted, and I've even seen people revert typos back into place.

So yes, you can "just go in and fix it" and then sit there and watch it everyday to make sure the article doesn't degrade again, but that's no longer a "just", and instead becomes a serious time commitment.

I still occasionally make edits, but only a small fraction of the time that I see errors. It's just not worth it much of the time when the decision about whether or not the edit is kept is made by whoever the next person is to stumble by and click the edit button. Note that this process is a different format to the open source procedure, where an improvement is submitted to a project leader who evaluates the quality of an edit and then includes it. There, edits are evaluated in a consistent manner, rather than simply being evaluated by coincidence of activity timing.

Imagine trying to use a wiki to make compilable source code for a usable program. Would you ever want to run such a program?

With the Wikis, all you have to do is go in and fix it yourself!

Which is unfortunately the same thing said by all the people who don't know what they're talking about. Only their "fixing" turns out to be more like "breaking".

I think you're missing my point.

[nugneant]

I'd still wager that the quality of the writing is still better than the average disjointed Wikipedia article, regardless of which contains more raw information.

Define "Young Students"

[FlatEric521]

One of the things that bothered be most about this article was the phrase "young students." To me, that means kids in elementary and middle school (jr. high or what have you) but prior to reaching high school or college. I would think that during the early school years, use of Wikipedia in school research projects has to be properly introduced to a student so they understand its use over the long run. A "young student" might not understand the problems inherent with inaccuracies when doing research and the need to go to multiple sources for fact checking. I think after explaining the multiple source concept, you could introduce Wikipedia as a handy reference, but also give an example of vandalism to drive home the point of why multiple sources are necessary.

Hopefully as they learn more they will understand more nuanced aspects of inaccuracy (bias, for one) and you can apply the more formal academic rules of research papers that would view Wikipedia as not acceptable as a primary source. By that point, you are more than welcome to go look around it to find information to lead you to primary sources.

Article about Wikipedia

[skiddie]

It's really sad to see that the only thing Britannica, an encyclopaedia with a tradition of more than 200 years, has left as a selling point is "Wikipedia sucks".

This is an article about Wikipedia. I'm sure that the Britannica spokesperson said other things (positive about themselves) but this article isn't about Britannica. If you (gasp) read the article, you'll see that, in fact, the Britannica people didn't only talk smack about Wikipedia, and in fact said "But Britannica and Wikipedia should not be seen as direct competitors. Wikipedia, he said, had made the use of encyclopaedias "trendy and popular" with young people, which could only benefit Britannica's subscription-led service."

Pedantic bitching

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr Wales said:
"a reference for younger students"

Unless there are 8 year olds doing their PhDs, WikiP seems a no brainer. When I was 8, we used Encyclopedia Brit in school and copied verbatim. I think it was intended as proof that we opened the book.

WikiP is for finding out what a tulip looks like. Yesterday it was used to get more info on Mosaddeq in the middle of a TV documentary. Today, I used it to find out how long breast feeding might last. In a couple years, when my kid asks a question I can't begin to answer, we'll look it up. All I want to teach him is how to find basic information on his own.

In a world torn apart by religious fundamentalism of every stripe, and where profs can't talk about certain subjects in cognitive psych because the majority of the class believes in the literal existence of angels, you've got to be an extraordinary kind of pedant to bitch about the authority of WikiP. Ignorance is not the answer to imperfect knowledge. All knowledge is imperfect, incomplete, ideological, revisionist, etc. A truly 'authoritative' source isn't an answer, it's a new problem.

If it's about Bears, it's Scooter Libby..

[Sparky McGruff]

If you see an article talking about having sex with bears, it's probably about Scooter Libby. If it's about other animals, it could be about this guy. Of course, it could be vandalism, too. Not all right-wing politicians have a "wide stance" in airport bathrooms, a diaper fetish, or are attracted to animals.

What about in-class usage?

[dubious elise]

I find this amusing because it came up in one of my architecture courses only a few weeks ago. The prof was discussing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in conjunction with different ways of interpreting monumentality. His stark example was the difference in english translations of the inscription on the Memorial Cenotaph that he had found online. The Japanese website for the park listed the translation as "Let all the souls here rest in peace; For we shall not repeat the evil." whereas Wikipedia, which the prof. made a snide comment about before reading, was listed as "Repose ye in Peace, for the error shall not be repeated.". Interestingly enough, the guy sitting next to me hailed from Japan and immediately pointed out to the professor that the Wikipedia translation was much more accurate. Grab a friend who is fluent in Japanese and look it up yourself - it's an interesting instance to consider.

Plagiarism

[iota-22]

The problem in my experience is not with wikipedia but with students using it. Instead of addressing these problems with a blanket ban by educators, why not put emphasis on teaching students the correct way to use wikipedia and the dangers of not doing so? On another note, a recent "other" niggle on misuse of wikipedia, I was shocked when someone complained about some seminar reading I had set the other day because there WASN'T a corresponding wikipedia article (which could be plagiarised) - clearly there is a problem when such a resource as wikipedia becomes so key to the way people are working (in this case, at a top UK university) that they find it much harder to work without it.

Wikipedia is no different than any other source

[SocietyoftheFist]

If you are using a source as a reference you should always make sure to be able to verify what you read and to make sure the sources for your source are valid. I have found false and misleading information on Wikipedia. I have also found that 99% of my searches contain accurate information, it is the one in one hundred where the entry was written by somebody with an obvious axe to grind that hurt Wikipedia's image.

"citing Wikipedia"

[Anonymous Coward]

That must be the new Godwin's Law. Good thing you didn't cite it.

He's right

[Fear the Clam]

As much as I would love to slam Wales for being some pathetic wannabe who can't even finish a dissertation at such august institutions as Auburn University or the University of Alabama, what he says in the article is right. Wikipedia is suitable as a "stepping stone."

If you want to find out about something, Wikipedia is about as good as asking your friend, who may or may not know what he's talking about. Whether you choose to verify this information and find out more is up to you.

Every time this discussion comes up

[ale_ryu]

I automatically associate wikipedia with the HitchHiker's Guide to the galaxy, and Encyclopedia britannica with Encyclopedia Galactica.
Seriously, seems like Adams saw the future on that one.

Wikipedia is not the issue

[cephalien]

The issue is quite simply: Wikipedia should NOT be the end of research. I don't care if you're writing a two page synopsis of a piece of work you did in an introductory bio lab and need a reference, or you're writing your dissertation.

But the problem with saying this and then unleashing wikipedia is that most students will take the shortest route to the destination. Well, wikipedia is an ok source to use, so I'll just type in what I want, read the article and paraphrase it for my paper. Walla. Done. NO. This is not how research is critically analyzed and considered. At the very least, they should be looking at some of the sources given in the wikipedia article and reading them to confirm the hypothesis and details given.

As an educator and a graduate student, I can attest -- this doesn't happen. Once you open the wikipedia floodgates, all scientific rigor goes out the window because students don't think they still should have to do the heavy lifting. This is why I will never, ever allow it to be used in my classes. Ever. It's a shortcut; one step above physically copying someone else's homework and handing it in as your own, because nobody who relies on it continuously is going to do -any- critical thinking.

Re:Wikipedia is not the issue

[Teancum]

Once you open the wikipedia floodgates, all scientific rigor goes out the window because students don't think they still should have to do the heavy lifting. This is why I will never, ever allow it to be used in my classes.

So, do you allow references to any encyclopedia in any of your classes as a source?

As a parent and educator, I encourage my children and students to use Wikipedia as a starting off point to begin research. It is a wonderful place to find a brief overview of a topic, related concepts, and original sources of information. You don't use Wikipedia to be the source but rather use it to help find the sources that are relevant. Look up what the authors of the Wikipedia article used to justify the information in the article. For featured articles, this is actually a requirement.

Yes, there will be some weak articles in Wikipedia.... just as there would be in any general reference book like Encyclopedia Britannica as well. Even when I was a kid (well before Wikipedia), it was common in a high school level or younger to have kids simply copy whole paragraphs from an encyclopedia and call it "research" for papers written as an assignment. I (unfortunately) even saw it on a college level. Using Wikipedia makes this no different.

For some topics, you as a student may not even have a clue where to being on studying about the subject. A Google search is often a poor tool as it throws up all kinds of garbage and people using keywords inappropriately to advertise some website... often porn websites to boot. A good website like Wikipedia can certainly help in identifying what is something of quality you ought to consider as you begin a scholarly study of the topic.

One other thing that Wikipedia does: It allows your students to "give back" and offer to others some of the fruits of their labor, if they choose to add to the article or even just add a few extra references suggestions to look at which apply to a given topic. Wikipedia shouldn't be looked at with fear and dread by educators, but instead should be discussed as why tertiary sources aren't necessarily something you should use instead of primary sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source and doesn't claim to be anything else.

Re: You people need to get out more...:-)

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a high school computer teacher. I've let my students explore all kinds of topics in Wikipedia, and LEARN to CRITICALLY assess information! Imagine that!

But there is something for those who want a nice, safe, fixed encyclopedia (wikipedia):
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/wikipedia-for-schools.htm

So, ./ers, spread the word to all students/teachers/parents that you know.
(And like, perhaps, maybe, make a donation during this holiday season?)

Re:How far along is wikipedia into it's corruption

[oldelpaso]

From looking at "Special:Protected pages", filtering out pages which aren't articles and pages below 500 bytes (to remove redirects and suchlike from the results) it looks to be somewhere in the region of 2250. This is roughly one in every thousand articles. Full protection (where only admins can edit) accounts for about a tenth of these, the other 90% are "semi-protected", meaning unregistered users cannot edit them but users with accounts more than a few days old can.

Re: Wikipedia for: "Young Students"

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/charity-news/wikipedia-for-schools.htm ./ers, spread the good news above to all elementary school children, teachers, parents, etc.

Problem solved.

Next? ;-)

(And please consider a donation this holiday season...:-))

Britannica is more reliable than Wikipedia

[OrangeTide]

But there are Wikipedia is faster and there are things on Wikipedia that are not in Britannica. And I'd rather have information put together by enthusiasts than no information at all.

Sourceability.

[tempest69]

No instructor wants to be handed in a paper that is a rehash of a wikipedia article. However the students would be idiots not to check the wikipedia entry. If I saw a paper where the student didnt consider a main point that was covered in the wikipedia article, I'd leave some bad marks.

By the time your in grad school for a particular topic, youve already been biased by wikipedia articles, as youve nearly memorized dozens of them specifically for your major. By that time it's usefull as a quick place to find articles via the bibliography.

Storm

Re:Sourceability.

[Anonymous Coward]

No instructor wants to be handed in a paper that is a rehash of a wikipedia [sic] article

That's okay; the professor will never read it anyway. You have to find out what references are valid to use from the Professor's aid. He or she is the real person you have to impress. Tenured Professors just chase grants, they don't teach.

"Jimbo Wales"

[Luscious868]

Anybody who refers to Jimmy Wales as "Jimbo" Wales should be kicked in the balls.

Re:"Jimbo Wales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that he calls himself "Jimbo Wales": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales

Re:"Jimbo Wales"

[milatchi]

"Anybody who refers to Jimmy Wales as "Jimbo" Wales should be kicked in the balls."

Citation needed.

Irrelevant.

[jpellino]

Like any reference, use more than one source, use some critical thinking, and don't leave your manure detector on the shelf. With those caveats, many educators find it just fine. The problems arise when students offer the first Wikipedia result from Google as their sole authoritative source and take it as gospel. No source deserves that treatment. Not even the gospels.

My experience

[mattpointblank]

At my university (Leeds, UK) staff at the English department actually gave us a lecture about research and citation outlining not using Wikipedia. I agree with the earlier poster who suggests that staff are biased in portraying professional academia as the only way to learn, but in spite of this, I often check out the wiki pages on my subjects as a way into them. While I'd never cite it on a paper (partly because of the attached stigma and partly because I'm usually not keen on citing web pages in the first place), I frequently use links found on wiki pages to more authorative documents which I can then refer to. I think this article misses the point of wiki: it's not supposed to be a fountain of knowledge, just as an encyclopedia is not. It's meant to act as an introduction to a complicated and in-depth topic which can provide a useful overview, examination of the key issues, and tips for where to look next. In that respect, it does its job well.

Would that be ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... the same Encyclopedia Britannica who used to sell 50 overpriced volumes, that took you longer to pay off on monthly installments than a typical 25 year mortgage ??? The same Encyclopedia Britannica who then lost 99% of their "bookbinding business" with the advent of CD-ROMS that made the same content accessible for $30 (or in the place where I live, the cost of 5 blank CDs, or about $3).

Seems like 290 years of rigorously fleecing the consumers isn't enough ... now they target Jimmy Wales free offering made by the people for the people. Sure it's open to vandalism (typically on controversial topics anyway). But for primary and secondary education, it's a wealth of information and I've found it to be very accurate.

Sounds like a good project

[Locklin]

have students find an incorrect piece of information on wikipedia. Shouldn't be hard, find a poorly sighted article (the one's with the notice at the top), do further background on the toppic, find an inconsistency and correct it.

Students learn just how accurate wikipedia is, and precisely how to vet the information you find (on any source).

Much more to be learned from the experience than banning it outright.

From my own experience...

[Urza9814]

A kid in my high school physics class decided to create a unit for momentum named after the teacher. He put it on the wikipedia page for momentum. It was up there about 3 days before the teacher mentioned this to the class and another student went on and removed it. So yes, wikipedia is a great resource. Most of my teachers say that it's a good place to get background information from. But what they won't let you do it use it as a source in your final work...which I agree with.

wikipedia needs to feel some consequences

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullies like Durova have ruined Wikipedia. Either Wikipedia cleans house (banning all existing admins and starting with people of integrity would be a good start) or it should be forked.

Bias should not be an issue ANYWAY

[brunes69]

Wikipedia is no more or less biased than any other primary source. Al primary sources you would use for a research paper are, y their very nature, extremely biased. That's what makes them primary sources.

And quite frankly - if you are writing a university-level paper and CAN NOT pick out the points of bias in ANY article after the first read through, you don't deserve to be in university. I don't need advanced knowledge on a subject to be able to pick out points of fact vs. points of here-say.

Re:Bias should not be an issue ANYWAY

[xenocide2]

Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a primary source. It's supposed to be a non point-of-view reference that cites primary sources.

Inappropriate content in "safe" articles.

[Anonymous Freak]

My problem with using Wikipedia in a grade-to-middle school setting is that there are plenty of article for which there is gratuitously inappropriate content for the article. I was trying to help my 6th grader learn about a topic, and went to an article about Stereoscopy, and one of the example images was a turn-of-the-last-century stereoscopic picture of a nude woman. Now while I'm not a prude, and have no problem with him seeing it (it was very tame,) it means that he would be in deep trouble if he opened that article at school. There were plenty of other examples that didn't require nudity.

I can fully understand the use of "questionable" content in articles ABOUT the "questionable" thing. (For example, the use of the f-word in articles about rappers as direct quotations from the rapper, or the use of a photo of a topless woman in the article on "breasts"; although there do seem to be so many in that article as to be gratuitous.) But in an article on stereoscopy? The picture belonged in an article on "turn of the 19-20-th century erotica", and if it was a prevalent use of stereoscopy, then maybe a MENTION in the stereoscopy article, but not an example. For example, the article on the VHS/Beta video format war mentions porn, but it doesn't have any screenshots of said porn.

Not a source

[SaintOfAllChucks]

While looking up info for research is acceptable Wikipedia itself is not a viable source for information because anyone can add anything to it. While this can be reduced with enough oversight it still isn't enough. If Wikipedia is used to look up information you need to reference its references just like you would do with a book that has chapters compiled from other books and journal papers. He can say whatever he wants about Wikipedia being better but until peer-reviewed journal articles allow it, it does not count as a source.

Educational treasure island

[yusing]

I would encourage older students to go to Wikipedia, and give them credit for finding ... *and correcting* ... any mistakes they found in the articles there ... so long as those corrections could be substantiated by three other reputable sources.

The benefits include: questioning authority, reflecting on what constitutes a "reputable source", documenting assertions, and taking action to improve Wikipedia. Students may not be ready to write entire articles, but they're certainly capable of finding individual mistakes -- even of improving on how the "facts" are presented. While some of WP's articles are highly polished, many are in need of improvements in grammar, punctuation, argumentation at the very least.

There's a great deal of value for students becoming involved in this worthy experiment... rather than turning them away.

German Wikipedia's better because there's no Jimbo

[oboreruhito]

If the German Wikipedia staff ran the English Wikipedia, it'd probably be more accurate. That's because there's no German Jimbo Wales, so the people who put the most work into the German WP got to set the tone -- not the founders, not the person with the most public face, but the best (or at least most present) editors. The effects trickle down throughout, with less of a sense of senior entitlement that a lot of English admins have and more of a meritocracy, of rewarding who does the most good and works the hardest.

Last point of this long mail: the impressive German projects like the printed wikireaders, the DVD, the writing contest with big media echo etc. In my opinion, these are due to several factors:

1. The independence of the German community from Jimbo and the Wikimedia Foundation. The English Wikipedia is very much a monarchy, with people looking to Jimbo for advice and guidance. The German Wikipedia had, and has, nobody with Jimbo's authority. People had to deal with the fact that there is no ultimate appeal. This has consequences for the social structure (which evolved to what I'd characterize as a meritocracy with a few prominent and influential editors) but also for the possibility to realize such projects. People had to act on their own, so they did it.
   
2. Personal dedication and leadership of individual Wikipedians. Most projects were team work, but there was usually one person who invested much more work than the others. The driving force behind the Wikipedia academy, a three day workshop at the university of Göttingen in June is one editor, Frank. The driving force behind many successful initiatives like the writing contest is Achim Raschka. The driving force behind the Wikipedia exhibition at the university library in Göttingen were Frank (who organized it) and me, who carried it out. The WikiReaders were produced by individuals. etc.
   
3. For the DVD and WikiPress: the luck to find a good partner company which is crazy enough to chance such a risky project, and whose bosses and employees "grok" the Wiki way. The first thing Vlado, one of the Directmedians and a Reggae expert, did after the first CD was finally ready for production was to expand the article "Riddim" to four times its size - at 2 o'clock at night. Just to relax...
   

That whole discussion that's linked above is really an enlightening read about the differences between the English and German Wikipedias.

(BTW: When I write "German Jimbo Wales", I can't help but think of mirror-universe Spock, except that German Jimbo would be the one to not have the evil beard.)

Opposed?

[Anonymous Coward]

You use the word "Opposed". I don't think you know what it means. Humanities and Computer Science are not two extremes of a continuum, they are simply different areas of study. So it makes the sentence difficult to understand.

I think you're trying to say "I'm now studying the Humanities to Complement my degree in Computer Science"

Some of my best humanities teachers were physicists. They always made the point that physics is truth, and thus, physics as an area of study that is inherently a search for truth, the same as philosophy or humanities.

Re:Opposed?

[Slurpee]

seriously - it's just a figure of speech.

I'm not studying humanities to complement my degree in Computer Science - it's a completely unrelated field.

But on the other hand - I wasn't using "opposed" in terms of opposition - but in terms of "it's a different field". Check a dictionary - you'll often find words have more than one use. Sometimes even several!

Minor edit

[nunyadambinness]

"Tests have shown that Wikipedia is about as reliable as the Brittanica" [citation needed]

Re:Minor edit

[cattywhumpus]

For example: http://science.slashdot.org/science/05/12/15/1352207.shtml?tid=95&tid=14 references a test by Nature. An earlier test by the Guardian (now apparently unavailable on their website) showed them to be about equally accurate.

Sources of Britannica cannot be discussed

[jasampler]

Wikipedia should be used as an educational resource because this way is easier to explain children that information is always generated by humans, and people is always falible, biased or simply ignorant. Even science and history change dramatically from time to time, when the community accepts it. Trying to give the children the false idea that always exists a trustable source for the information is wrong and prevent them to acquire a better critical sense.

Teacher's/academic's perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a teaching fellow in my Ph.D. program. I have my students read this essay on Wikipedia by Stacy Schiff, from the _New Yorker_ of July 31, 2006:

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact

It's a good overview of many issues surrounding the reliability and quality of Wikipedia. I teach freshmen at a major "public Ivy," and a lot of them are genuinely surprised to learn this stuff. For the record, I prohibit them from using Wikipedia as a cited source in their essays, but I strongly encourage them to look at the works cited/references section of Wikipedia articles for good, reliable starting points in their own writing. So Wales is right to a certain extent. Wikipedia is really good as a signpost, but not much good as a destination--unless you already have the knowledge and skepticism to evaluate each article with a critical eye. I do; a lot of my students don't. YMMV.

On other news...

[gabspeck]

...Bill Gates Says Corporations 'Should Use' Windows.

Lesser of two evils?

[Anonymous Coward]

To claim that Wikipedia is any more OR less accurate than an encyclopedia is pure speculation. I've encountered inaccuracies and political agendas in both.

It's basically the same as free vs. open-source software. One party says that quality is dictated by rigid and secretive control by a corporation and the other claims a wide variety of opinions will generate a better result through peer review and input. Both groups produce more bad software than good.

Case in point; Compare, if you are able, an encyclopedia entry on cannabis/hemp pre-1930 versus a recent edition. In one encyclopedia (I do not remember which) the 1915 edition entry was 5+ pages long extensively covering its uses and preparation. After the 'war on drugs' started the entry began shrinking with each edition until todays encyclopedia boasts a few paragraphs mostly echoing the USA's anti-hemp/drug-war propaganda. It's a perfect example of how an encyclopedia is not immune to political, legal and social manipulation.

Also look at Wikipedias entries (and the talk pages) on 'September 11' or 'cold fusion' to see what can happen when the 'facts' are dictated by agendas.

Or if they're even more clever...

[ben there...]

Do you want to know what happens? 9/10ths of them will go to the article they want, read it, change enough so that it's not a direct quote, put it in their assigment, and then put the wikipedia article in the works cited page. They should go to wikipedia, copy the text verbatim into their own research paper, then edit the wikipedia article using their 3rd grade writing level to paraphrase what they stole. Quality writing plagiarized without leaving any trace.

Wikipedia is NOT just another source

[hadaso]

Wikipedia is NOT just another source. Wikipedia is editable. Student can edit Wikipedia. And teachers can send students to edit Wikipedia.

Instead of banning Wikipedia citations (or allowing) and instead of telling students about theoretical "source criticism" teachers should send students to edit Wikipedia (that is to add/correct information, not to vandalize). This way the student will get true understanding of what sources are or can be, and why facts need to be based on several independent sources.

Teachers can also initiate and supervise student's activity on Wikipedia, and even give credit for such activity. Both their student and the rest of humanity would benefit.

Finally, the fact a source is "authoritative" and the author is an expert in the field does not mean the facts are correct. I have seen false staements published in professional peer reviewed mathematical publications as theorems with proofs, only the theorems are false (with easy counter-examples) and the proofs contain mistakes. SO does Wikipedia. The difference is that if one sees a mistake in Wikipedia one can immediately correct it, or at least record it in the article discussion.

Corrected now

[hadaso]

I corrected it now (not necessarily to your liking).

I think more academics need to monitor and fix Wikipedia articles, as it is a source of information to their students. Or we can supervise our students doing it.