Interesting article here on the possible near-future demise of Wikipedia, due to all of the problems associated with it.
When Wikipedia first came out, I was a bit wary. After all, anyone can write anything? What’s that all about, I wondered. But then it seemed there were some restrictions after all, and I fell to referring to it often. Everyone on this Board points to it like it was a gospel. But it seems its still plagued by hoaxes and jokesters? So, how far can one believe what is written in Wikipedia?
I use Wiki here on the Dope like this: When there’s a factual topic I know and want to communicate in a thread, one which might be tangental or simply supportative that doesn’t require a full first hand explaination, I’ll use a simple Wiki link. When doing so I’ll scan the Wiki page first to confirm that it’s accurate enough to support my point. If all I know about a topic is what I read on Wiki I wouldn’t be offering that in any thread since that’s not personal knowledge.
So long as people use Wiki similarly, as a shortcut to communicate an idea or as context to a larger point, it doesn’t need to be flawless and conprehensive to be useful. Prior to Wiki people used random Websites as citiations and context with the implied disclaimer “this website claims” and that was worse than Wiki could possibly be. Wiki at least has the vast majority of users and contributors interested in accuracy and knowledge.
I use it when I want to quickly find something out and don’t need an in-depth understanding of it, or have an idle curiosity about something. I’d never use it to prove a point or rely on it being factual for anything that mattered. It’s good for getting a general understanding without a lot of effort.
Eh. In general, articles on wikipedia cite their claims and it’s not hard to follow back to the primary source or as close as one can get on the internet. And if all you see for any particular topic is something to the effect of “[noun] is a fag” or “[noun] sucks” and you don’t think to look at the history then the internet and possibly critical thinking is not for you.
Outside of the same sort of points that have been argued over endlessly for the whole span of existence of the Wikipedia (and which seem to have all been proven out as being really not very big issues), the only thing the link seems to be saying is that the founder guy might be reaching the point where he needs to step down and hand things over to someone more capable of running a larger, more professional organization. Personally, I have no idea how true that is, but either way that doesn’t seem to really lead to the idea that the Wikipedia is going to fall apart anytime soon.
It can get very bad, just the other day I looked up Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (on dutch wikipedia, mind you) and they descibed it as an UTOPIAN novel…
Generally I try to stay away from it when I need to support a fact. However, if you are looking for basic information on a topic, it really isn’t any better or worse than any other website.
Wikipedia is what the partially aborted h2g2 project was attempting to be, and for that reason I think of it as being a true Hithchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
Why not only impose the delayed edits on the more mature articles, i.e. that moved past stub (and semi-stub) stage. Then, smaller articles can grow quickly, whilst the larger ones only change when the edit has been approved.
They discuss the risks of establishing a loop of trust between Wikipedia and some new source.
In this case, there was an article about Germany’s new economic affairs minister, whose name is about a dozen names long.
“Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg”
Some joker slipped a “Wilhelm” into the mix in Wikipedia and a lazy reporter copied that into an article. Wikipedia then referenced the lazy reporter’s article as a cite for the “Wilhelm,” eroding trust in Wikipedia.
'The [world] is a rapidly changing place. There is, frankly, so much of it, every bit of which is continually on the move, continually changing. A bit of a nightmare, you might think, for a scrupulous and conscientious editor diligently striving to keep this massively detailed and complex electronic tome abreast of all the changing circumstances and conditions that the [world] throws up every minute of every hour of every day, and you would be wrong. Where you would be wrong would be in failing to realize that the editor, like all the editors that [Wikipedia] has ever had, has no real grasp of the meaning of the words “scrupulous”, “conscientious,” and “diligent,” and tends to get his nightmares through a straw.
‘Entries tend to get updated or not on [Wikipedia] according to if they read good…’
(Taken from ‘So long and thanks for all the fish’ with a few words changed.)
This is much more an indictment of these supposedly reputable German publications than Wikipedia. As for the argument in general, it’s only true if such a trust loop forms. This will only occur if “trustworthy” publications prove themselves to be not so, by using information from Wikipedia. In that case, the publication should no longer be an acceptable cite on Wikipedia, since they are clearly incompetent.
I think the more dangerous editing is the insidious stuff. It’s not hard to fix an edit on the order of “Springstteen SXUX!”–Just revert to a previous page. It’s subtle misdirection that would be a problem.
I’m not convinced Wikipedia needs flagged revision. It’s made it this far with only *ad hoc *locks, it can probably continue as it has done.
It is not a small point that, given a search on the internet for info about some random topic, the Wikipedia pages I’ve seen (and I use it a lot) are of fundamentally decent quality (in terms of the info) when compared with the typical webpage out there.
Even if the info is not always perfect, this is still a huge improvement over not having Wikipedia. Why? Because otherwise when you search for info about a particular topic, you will have to pick from a bunch of random websites you have never heard of and decide for yourself which to believe. Even if one of those websites is potentially more accurate than a corresponding Wikipedia article, what are the chances you hit upon the right site?
To me, the great importance of Wikipedia is that the public can rely on it as a “typically reliable” source of general info. It’s obviously a starting point, and needs to be read with the knowledge that what you’re reading could be incorrect. But that’s true of everything on the internet, and at least Wikipedia is correct more often than not.
I’m certainly getting that impression now with this thread. It’s just that I always see people referring to it to prove their point. I may be letting a small, unrepresentative population skew my viewpoint, though.
It’s just the quick and easy reference. As mentioned above, Wiki articles cite their primary sources and if you have reason to be academically rigorous, that’s where you should go. Wiki is really just a helpful jumping-off point. If you’re debating a concept on a message board, it’s understandable that one might not want to put the same amount of effort into backing up their claims as they would their doctoral thesis. So Wiki is a godsend that gives a claim more substance than one that would otherwise be completely unsubstantiated, but no one is calling it gospel.
A few examples of articles getting edited by jokesters and hoaxsters is nothing to get alarmed about. The articles tend to get fixed with pretty impressive alacrity, which if anything only boosts my faith in the system. Also mentioned upthread, as long you’re keeping your critical thinking wits about you these sorts of shenanigans pose little to no real threat.
I too was entirely skeptical when I first heard about Wiki’s ambitious concept, but I’m overwhelmingly impressed with the results and would call it a success story beyond anything I would have imagined, flaws and all.
Unless you’re referring to .gov sites or a few select others, Wikipedia is just as likely to be as accurate as whatever online source you would be using otherwise, and probably moreso. It’s not like 99% of websites go through any kind of peer review or fact-checking whatsoever, but Wikipedia seems to catch 10 times more shit for it than any other site.