What does AG think? Is Wikipedia the right place to go to for information? If not, how do you think Wikipedia could be modified to be more efficient and accurate? Also, do you think Wikipedia is appropriate for some circumstances and not others?
I think Wikipedia is alright to use if you're just looking up one or two things out of curiosity, but I believe that unless you check where the information comes from, it would not be practical for use in, say, an essay about William Shakespeare. There are plenty of other sources available online that are credible and often just as plentiful with information as Wikipedia is.
There are a bunch of offices in Germany that are employed to clean up wiki and correct the pages, let me do some digging and i shall return with source!
I suppose Wiki is somewhat reputable as a source for very general information. However, more conceptual information should be obtained from a trustworthy source.
It can be edited by anyone, it is obviously not credible.
Yes, however Wiki also has a moderating team which monitor edits. Also, because it can be edited by anyone it actually is a relatively reliable source. Anyone noticing errors is free to correct them, and more often than not it is quite accurate. While I agree it's not the best source, it is often a good place to get a rough idea of the information and is often a good source for 'layman's terms' explanations.
As long as you check the information with the source that is cited, or another if no such cite exists, than wikipedia can be used for a basic gathering of information. if you are using it as a source for a project then i would recommend citing the other source and crediting it as where you got the information instead of wikipedia for the simple reason that anyone reading it is going to see nothing but the name WIKIPEDIA and automatically label your writings as inaccurate.
I use wikipedia very often and I haven't ever bumped into an article that isn't good. Also, it isn't like you have to write it all over again, you just go to history and pick a good article.
Has anyone here actually edited Wikipedia? Just a question out of curiosity.
Over 15000 edits. I'm kinda lame like that, but I haven't actually edited it much for a few years.
For the most part, I trust what I read on Wikipedia (various sciences and geography mostly) and have learned a fair bit from there (referenced or not, but you really can't argue that Kanyakumari is the southernmost point of India), but some of the science (and pretty much all of the math) articles are uselessly and hopelessly dense. I don't really trust the biographies, pop culture, and politics, but then again, who would?
Maybe Wikipedia is a credible source of information, but it depends on the topic. For a topic with tons of traffic, like one on a country, it would be pretty hard to make major edits because somebody would notice.
I once looked up the GDP per capita of Nunavut on different pages of Wikipedia. Each one said something different, ranging from 70 000 to 115 000.
I'd go with looking at the cited source, or I would go with a more credible source of information, like the CIA Factbook if you're looking up countries, or Scientific America if you're looking for information on science.
In my opinion it is credible on some sources but more controverisal sources like Iraq war and some notable people are often incorrect. I find this for Vladimir Lenin once. "Lenin was an avid homosexual and one of his favourite pastimes was converting young boys"......Seriously.
In my younger days I frequently abused Wikipedia making ridiculous claims some more unbelievable than the Lenin one I just shared.
But then I guess that's why the citations are there.
So kids if you wanna use Wikipedia make sure its cited!
Gantic: I've known that you've edited before, judging on your past quotations of WP policy. Never reckoned you were that prolific though...we must have crossed paths sometime before, what with 23k edits from me and 15k from you?
