And conventional experts DON'T "change their minds"?? If you're talking mostly about random trolling and vandalism, sure, I understand your concern, but you can look at the page history to check up on that sort of thing. The general business of "changing opinion" on something is different. I didn't know wikipedia could "change its mind" anyway, although I know what you mean. I still think people basically misunderstand the purpose of the whole thing. It was never intended to be an "authority" on anything. As far as accuracy, again, I think it's far too early to be judging things. The basic mechanism of getting better and better accuracy is basically the same at wikipedia as in conventional encyclopedias, just slanted more toward populism and still in infancy. But, really, how do "experts" arrive at what is considered accurate?? Voting! Consensus! This is how science and most areas of knowledge work. While the mechanism at wikipedia may be rougher around the edges and young, I don't see any reason to think IN THE LONG RUN it won't attain a high degree of robustness. And the advantage at wikipedia is, the mechanism of arrival at consensus and accuracy is IN PLAIN VIEW and public, as opposed to other domains of knowledge (like science) where the experts can arrive at "expert conclusions" while keeping the mechanism of how they did this largely secret from the world.
I think you mean, "information on it is that it has to have NEVER been published somewhere else". As far as depth of coverage or choice of topics, I never understood this complaint. People write what interests them. The fact that there is so much more on Star Trek than on other worthy topics isn't an indictment of wikipedia, it just reflects the fact that at the moment there's a lot of trekkies there. Instead of complaining that there not any information or articles on something you know about and think is important, why not just add it yourself?? If a topic is not being represented, it's only because the people who are knowledgeable about it haven't written anything yet.
I don't think wikipedia was really intended from the start as a source for academics to cite. If I'm not mistaken, the purpose was to be able to provide knowledge to the world free of charge. In other words, it has primarily been intended to be a learning resource, but not as a place for academic citations. The fact that so many people just automatically assume that the primary use of an encyclopedia is for academic citations, not general learning by people, kind of reveals a lot, I think.
''My only real concern is that people will forget that some bits of Wikipedia can be inaccurate, leading to feedback loops of information. Something might get posted in a Wikipedia article and then get used by a historian or researcher who should know better, and then that validation could lead people to believe the information to be entirely true. We'll have to see how that plays out.''
I believe this happens not infrequently already in mainstream academia and the press (or at least, more than you would think).
Well, although since wikipedia is still in infancy, I can sympathize, I still don't buy your argument. For one thing, I am extremely wary of so-called "standard" references and "authoritative sources" that are supposed to be maintained by experts. I often encounter lots of mistakes and errors in articles or entries only written by a single author. This is especially true in math. It's very easy to get something wrong when talking about math, and it's not always deliberate or incompetence. The standard encyclopedias are almost worthless when it comes to general mathematics knowledge. They're full of mistakes and inaccuracies. There are a large number of grad students and ph.d. mathematicians at wikipedia, and we have one of the most extensive (and growing) collection of math articles on the web. They cover a variety of topics, and are written for readability, (compare to mathworld or other online math resources, often just having a simple definition and no motivation or explanation). The math section is anything but a joke or "onion-esque". The mathematics section is well-maintained, but I don't think there's anything special about math, just that it's development has progressed better than other areas. But I can imagine in the future the same level of quality people becoming involved in other academic areas, you just don't see it yet because it's still at an earlier stage.
First of all, if you're using wikipedia as an authority for some information, and this is important it is correct, you should be able to wait more than five minutes to double-check? If it's that important, you should be checking the info over a period of time (hours, days, etc.) and against other sources to verify.
Secondly, as wikipedia grows, there will be different "versions" produced, in the sense that the best articles will be selected out, checked by editors and experts (not written, but checked) and this will be put out as a version. The first edition is going to be Wikipedia 1.0 coming out next year sometime.
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And conventional experts DON'T "change their minds"?? If you're talking mostly about random trolling and vandalism, sure, I understand your concern, but you can look at the page history to check up on that sort of thing. The general business of "changing opinion" on something is different. I didn't know wikipedia could "change its mind" anyway, although I know what you mean. I still think people basically misunderstand the purpose of the whole thing. It was never intended to be an "authority" on anything. As far as accuracy, again, I think it's far too early to be judging things. The basic mechanism of getting better and better accuracy is basically the same at wikipedia as in conventional encyclopedias, just slanted more toward populism and still in infancy. But, really, how do "experts" arrive at what is considered accurate?? Voting! Consensus! This is how science and most areas of knowledge work. While the mechanism at wikipedia may be rougher around the edges and young, I don't see any reason to think IN THE LONG RUN it won't attain a high degree of robustness. And the advantage at wikipedia is, the mechanism of arrival at consensus and accuracy is IN PLAIN VIEW and public, as opposed to other domains of knowledge (like science) where the experts can arrive at "expert conclusions" while keeping the mechanism of how they did this largely secret from the world.
I think you mean, "information on it is that it has to have NEVER been published somewhere else". As far as depth of coverage or choice of topics, I never understood this complaint. People write what interests them. The fact that there is so much more on Star Trek than on other worthy topics isn't an indictment of wikipedia, it just reflects the fact that at the moment there's a lot of trekkies there. Instead of complaining that there not any information or articles on something you know about and think is important, why not just add it yourself?? If a topic is not being represented, it's only because the people who are knowledgeable about it haven't written anything yet.
I don't think wikipedia was really intended from the start as a source for academics to cite. If I'm not mistaken, the purpose was to be able to provide knowledge to the world free of charge. In other words, it has primarily been intended to be a learning resource, but not as a place for academic citations. The fact that so many people just automatically assume that the primary use of an encyclopedia is for academic citations, not general learning by people, kind of reveals a lot, I think.
''My only real concern is that people will forget that some bits of Wikipedia can be inaccurate, leading to feedback loops of information. Something might get posted in a Wikipedia article and then get used by a historian or researcher who should know better, and then that validation could lead people to believe the information to be entirely true. We'll have to see how that plays out.'' I believe this happens not infrequently already in mainstream academia and the press (or at least, more than you would think).
Well, although since wikipedia is still in infancy, I can sympathize, I still don't buy your argument. For one thing, I am extremely wary of so-called "standard" references and "authoritative sources" that are supposed to be maintained by experts. I often encounter lots of mistakes and errors in articles or entries only written by a single author. This is especially true in math. It's very easy to get something wrong when talking about math, and it's not always deliberate or incompetence. The standard encyclopedias are almost worthless when it comes to general mathematics knowledge. They're full of mistakes and inaccuracies. There are a large number of grad students and ph.d. mathematicians at wikipedia, and we have one of the most extensive (and growing) collection of math articles on the web. They cover a variety of topics, and are written for readability, (compare to mathworld or other online math resources, often just having a simple definition and no motivation or explanation). The math section is anything but a joke or "onion-esque". The mathematics section is well-maintained, but I don't think there's anything special about math, just that it's development has progressed better than other areas. But I can imagine in the future the same level of quality people becoming involved in other academic areas, you just don't see it yet because it's still at an earlier stage.
First of all, if you're using wikipedia as an authority for some information, and this is important it is correct, you should be able to wait more than five minutes to double-check? If it's that important, you should be checking the info over a period of time (hours, days, etc.) and against other sources to verify. Secondly, as wikipedia grows, there will be different "versions" produced, in the sense that the best articles will be selected out, checked by editors and experts (not written, but checked) and this will be put out as a version. The first edition is going to be Wikipedia 1.0 coming out next year sometime.