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Wikipedia-Sponsored Pilot Study Lauds Wikipedia Accuracy
netbuzz writes "The Wikimedia Foundation today is releasing the results of a 'pilot study' it commissioned last year to assess the accuracy and quality of Wikipedia in such a way that it would provide a methodology blueprint for others do more thorough reviews of online encyclopedias. The results are in, and despite ready acknowledgment of the small sample size and paragraphs worth of other caveats, the parents of Wikipedia can't help but note that its baby was judged to have outperformed other online encyclopedias, including Encyclopedia Britannica, in three different languages. Britannica, which disputed the Wikipedia-friendly results of a much-cited Fortune comparison report back in 2005, has yet to offer a reply to this one."
In before 'citation needed'!
And water wet.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
I bet it has a big old ugly picture of Jimmy Wales across the top.
The quality and accuracy of some articles is great. I would think that most "core" subjects that get a lot of viewers will tend to be of high quality. However look at the entry for so meting obscure, like the town I live in, and you might find something strange. At times there have been mistakes, now corrected - but there is still an odd balance. There is a lot of detail on railway lines that used to go to the station, and what destinations you could reach from the trains.There is a lack of detail on the current geography and economy. Things are driven by people's interests.
* According to a study sponsored by the tabacco industry.
Unfortunately the study has been deemed Not Noteworthy by one of Wikipedia's editors and been removed.
If Wikipedia did this study and kept the results to themselves there would be criticisms regarding transparency. Parties who have a self-interest in damaging Wikipedia would have new ammunition.
The quality and accuracy of some articles is great. I would think that most "core" subjects that get a lot of viewers will tend to be of high quality. However look at the entry for so meting obscure, like the town I live in, and you might find something strange. At times there have been mistakes, now corrected - but there is still an odd balance. There is a lot of detail on railway lines that used to go to the station, and what destinations you could reach from the trains.There is a lack of detail on the current geography and economy. Things are driven by people's interests.
Also, any subject (such as, say, Presidential candidates) that is/can be politicized is likely to be suspect
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
found that cigarettes do not cause cancer. Additionally, smoking cigarettes has the following benefits, probably demonstrated by Tobacco research:
They increase your coolness factor by 5 points.
They increase your expected annual salary by 15%
They increase the likelihood that you will get laid on any given night by 23%
They decrease the risk of looking like an idiot, since nobody standing around smoking a cigarette can look like an idiot.
They cause weight gain or weight loss, depending on whether you want to gain or lose.
They cure the common cold, reduce flu symptoms to 1 day, and potentially cure cancer (we're still checking on that one).
They inhibit the AIDS virus, no seriously.
They also increase lung capacity, so if you want to be an Olympic athlete, you should smoke cigarettes!
In all seriousness, what self-funded studies that find negative things are actually published? You should expect that a headline saying "X funded self study Y" where X is some business that is commonly cited to have some problem and Y is some contention to that commonly held problem. I'm citing this as jMerliN's law of headlines.
This article may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed.
...Wikipedia is a hear-say site and this is established by their own policy that limits their liability. In other words: Wikipedia only allows what can be found already published. This was further exposed when through trickery an entry was made that did not yet have other published but upon wikipedia publishing the other made a reference to wikipedia and then the wikipedia article was edited to point to that article as a reference.... And it was found out and the article removed. I don't recall what article that was.
I'm going to commission a study to find out why I am so awesome...
I will keep you posted with the results.
Yeah, I would say that on articles that have attracted enough attention to have multiple knowledgeable editors, quality is quite good. Exceptions for some rough spots in very hot-button areas, like Israel-Palestine, where sometimes editors with the wrong motives are attracted.
What I like compared to Britannica is that it's less likely there will be a whopper of an omission in a high-profile article. Some Britannica articles, especially on science/math topics, just have really puzzling stuff missing, or stated incorrectly, while those tend to get found on Wikipedia.
Of course, they're a bit biased with their list, but a few smug Wikipedians actually maintain a list of Britannica errors that Wikipedia has fixed.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
That's what they should do, though! Wikipedia isn't a place to publish your own personal knowledge, but a place to publish information that can be cited, ideally to peer-reviewed articles or books. Half the point of a Wikipedia article is being able to look up the references for further reading, and citation where [3] resolves to "[3] Personal experience of Wikipedia user Ancient_Hacker" just isn't very helpful for that.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_megadrive
This redirects to Sega Genesis, even though it was only known as this in North America.
However, a vote took place on what to call it and as a result of this vote, it's referred to as the Genesis, which is wrong.
It crap like this that makes me wonder what other facts have been altered.
Summation 2
Well you are breaking the rules. This is to ensure accuracy. If you want them to change something, you have to have a reference-able source. So go write the book on it, get a newspaper article published or something, then reference it in Wikipedia as you make the change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
I think we know the rules. The issue is that they are foolish. They do no ensure accuracy, in fact, in the case you are responding to, it ensures that is it IS NOT accurate.
Other than that, well done.
No. They are arguing that verifiable information is better then "Take my word for it" information.
In an ideal world, if the "take my word for it" information is true, then it should get tested, verified, and published somewhere so that it can move into the "verifiable" information category.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
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Instead of reply, I'll give you a xkcd ... http://xkcd.com/978/ :P
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
No, the theory is that it is OK, as long as there are people not in anyway connected or related to the author being able to continue the maintenance of the article. The problem with personal knowledge is that it gets lost as soon as the person loses interest in wikipedia or is run over by a bus (which in turn also causes a sudden loss of interest in maintaining wikipedia articles). That's the same reason original research is frowned upon - there should always be at least a second person being able to continue where the original author as left. And it helps if you can make yourself knowledgeable about the subject without being referred to Wikipedia articles, if you want to edit Wikipedia articles.
Wikipedia isn't a place to publish your own personal knowledge, but a place to publish information that can be cited, ideally to peer-reviewed articles or books.
If you really believe that, they may not be hope for you.
Wikipedia is all about certain people taking over articles and, accuracy be damned, making sure those articles reflect the viewpoints of those people.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Dammit!
I am right and I know I am right.
Take your well sourced "truth" and shove it up your ass!
My word is gold. You just have to trust my IP address that I know for a fact that you are wrong.
Umm. You know that was sarcastic. Right?
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Precisely - outside of geek culture, pop culture, and the sciences... Wikipedia has some pretty severe quality problems.
Not to mention the traditional Slashdot lament "who is surprised that a study sponsored by Wikipedia finds Wikipedia is accurate?".
Microsoft-sponsored study shows Windows has lowest TCO of all operating systems EVARRRRRRR
"Citation nee....
Oh, never mind.
People aren't mad over Wikipedia's overall accuracy level, which I'm sure is fantastic. They're mad that they can edit any single specific thing to say whatever they want. I don't care if Wikipedia is 99.999999% accurate if I can hit edit and say Barack Obama was born on Mars. It's importance of information combined with ease of editing it that makes Wikipedia lose all respect.
Think of it as the Bob Lazar rule. You can't have people adding their weird theories based on unverified personal experience.
And, IMO people tend to over-value certain bits of information based on personal opinions founded at the time. You see this all the time on Slashdot where a poster tries to pull rank by saying stuff like "I was there, I worked at a computer shop in 1998!". They then proceed to get basic facts incorrect (common one: the order of Windows releases), or just parrot some conventional wisdom.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
In science, at least, what is considered "correct" is more or less decided through the peer-review process. If something is not described in a citable, peer-reviewed article, it's just not science, and shouldn't be discussed in Wikipedia articles. It might be true, but Wikipedia's not the place to break that new finding. It should go through peer-review first, and then Wikipedia will write about it once it's published.
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Obligatory Onion:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/wikipedia-celebrates-750-years-of-american-indepen,2007/
Dear sir, are you fucking serious?
In case you have not already been informed, jews were the last thing that you and your ilk blamed all of your problems on. As there are many fewer jews now and you evidently still have the same amount of problems, I would have to therefore assume that your problems are unrelated to jews or any other religious sect, and therefore self made, rather than caused by another party. I would further like to say that I would not use the same words as you to describe the motivations of even a savage crocodile, much less another human being.
In order to charitably appeal to your intellect, I will say perhaps the traits you are so desperate to ascribe to jews are in fact traits of all mankind, that it so dearly would like to hide, and that perhaps simply mankind itself is its own worst enemy, in the absence of any other. Only the likes of you could believe that everything would be completely fine if it werent for those 'pesky kids.'
In summary, go and choke on a dick you shit stirring pseudo intellectual prick, the words that spew from your mouth are a waste of fresh air that none alive wish to hear aside from your own pathetic self.
So how do I know that some random Wikipedia user is not bullshitting me, if his/her citation is "I know this from personal experience"? How do you distinguish between real physics and fringe-physics kooks?
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If you have specific objections to the content based on substantial personal knowledge/experience - but don't have time to do the editing (preferable) or to look up a bunch of citations - then bring your points up in the TALK page.
There they -will- be seen be serious editor(s) and (eventually) will be dealt with. The time this takes can vary from days to years. Faster results may result from snagging an ear in one of the community forums.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Encyclopedia Britannica, is that you?
Which is exactly why Wikipedia rules don't let self published works, such as blogs, be used as "Reliable sources"
So, you are arguing that incorrect and /wrong/ information is preferable to true and accurate information?
You're arguing that Wikipedia being factually inaccurate is a /strength/?
No wonder so many people view the place as a joke.
Traditional encyclopedias suffer from the same weakness. The editors of Encyclopedia Britannica can't rely on their personal experience when writing articles.
That is the key
Popular topics are better than Britannica because of the many eyes business
Less popular topics are better than Britannica because Britannica has no article.
All I can say is that I'm still feeling a little guilty about uploading an article about Sgt. Pat McGroyne, who led the charge at the Battle of the Bulge.