# The Case Against Wikipedia **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 19, 2009, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930 "2009-08-19T06:31:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/61 "2009-08-20T07:58:41Z")
Wikipedia is a good source for trivial knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/62 "2009-08-20T09:02:35Z")
> [@Hero\_From\_Sector\_7G](#): > > I don’t know of a single school or educator that “accept” wikipedia as a primary source of information. Are you just yelling at a strawman, or can you provide cites that show universities embracing wikipedia as scholarly resources? I’m undertaking a Masters degree at a reputable Australian university and Wikipedia is permitted as a source by the Course Convenor, provided it’s done sensibly and isn’t the major reference used. For example, if I’m writing a paper on the development of the Blogosphere, I can make reference to the Wikipedia article on Twitter as part of an outline of what Twitter is. My Course Convenor is an active Wikipedian himself and knows how it works and what its limitations are, though. If someone tried to hand in a paper on New Journalism with Wikipedia as the primary source, they’d get knocked back. But it would be OK to list the Wikipedia article as _a_ source amongst other “Traditional” sources. So, I know, the plural of anecdote isn’t data, but Wikipedia isn’t automatically _verboten_ as a reference in higher educational circles. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2009, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/63 "2009-08-20T09:24:03Z")
I propose a new word to be adopted by Wiki-lovers, or used as an insult by hater: _Wikipedophile_. ---
**Author:** ![Procyon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ac91a4/32.png) [@Procyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procyon)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/64 "2009-08-21T03:08:54Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > Your complaint makes no sense. Encyclopedias are always dull and dry. If you don’t want to read an encyclopedia type article, and if wikipedia often ends up being in the first few hits when you google, then _move your mouse down a little_ and choose the another hit. Is it going to kill you? Great Og on a pogo stick, talk about an over reaction. I should’ve been a little more clear. It’s not that I personally can’t find stimulating reading on Google, but as Wikipedia’s popularity continues to increase it is going to siphon off writers who could be creating something interesting on their own but want to feel like they’re actually being read. Then it _will_ be harder for me to find interesting material because less of it is being made. I’ll try to put it another way. Good writers aren’t benefiting from contributing to Wikipedia because others are going to slice and dice their words[1]. Bad writers aren’t benefiting from contributing to Wikipedia because they’re bad. Who is benefiting from this situation? [1]: Despite the fairly shoddy condition of most Wikipedia articles, I’m assuming there are some good contributors. If that’s true, then _something_ has to happen between when someone writes something good and when I read it. I don’t know if this is just a matter of too many cooks in the kitchen, or getting bogged down by lengthy debates over what constitutes neutrality, or overzealous admins, but really, we wouldn’t be having this debate if the writing on Wikipedia were jaw-droppingly good. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/65 "2009-08-21T04:49:11Z")
One thing I really hate about Wikipedia is how often I click on a source to check a reference and the link doesn’t work. If it’s not verifable what’s the point? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/66 "2009-08-21T04:52:44Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > One thing I really hate about Wikipedia is how often I click on a source to check a reference and the link doesn’t work. If it’s not verifable what’s the point? A lot of that depends how popular the article is. If an article isn’t popular, it’s entirely possible that the link _was_ valid when the article was written (check the history), but since then it’s fallen into disuse and no-one has been maintaining the article to update it. Or, occasionally, someone it deliberate inserting an iffy (or non-existent) reference to push a POV, but again, it depends on the article. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/67 "2009-08-21T05:03:23Z")
> [@Procyon](#): > > I should’ve been a little more clear. It’s not that I personally can’t find stimulating reading on Google, but as Wikipedia’s popularity continues to increase it is going to siphon off writers who could be creating something interesting on their own but want to feel like they’re actually being read. Then it _will_ be harder for me to find interesting material because less of it is being made. > > I’ll try to put it another way. Good writers aren’t benefiting from contributing to Wikipedia because others are going to slice and dice their words[1]. Bad writers aren’t benefiting from contributing to Wikipedia because they’re bad. Who is benefiting from this situation? Your complaint puzzles me, since it suggests that you don’t really grok the core focus of Wikipedia. It’s not there to let individual writers stand out, it’s there for some quick, general information about a vast variety of topics. It’s a shallow but wide pool, not intended to be the be-all and end-all. Witty, individual writing would actually be a _bad thing_, as it would get in the way of the information presented. Even then, if you really want, you can still get “exposure” on Wiki. If you write some lengthy, valid, useful article on a topic, you can go to Wiki yourself and insert it into the entry with a citation that links to your article. If it contributes, it’s likely to stand. Wikipedia actually has a thing about citing sources itself. Look on any page of some subject that can’t be covered by a single Wikipedia article and there’ll for certain be some references and suggested reading. Abraham Lincoln’s page, [for example](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_lincoln#References). It’s just a site for basic, general knowledge. I’m not sure why that seems to peeve people. Are you also upset that the [Pocket Ref](http://www.amazon.com/Pocket-Ref-Thomas-J-Glover/dp/1885071337/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250830778&sr=8-1) doesn’t include the proofs for the geometry and trig formulas it includes? ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/68 "2009-08-21T10:54:40Z")
Well for Britannica In 1994 an online version was launched,[2] with subscriptions for sale for $2,000 (hee citing Wiki 🙂 ). How much does Wiki cost? I just checked Amazon, a full set of Britannica print edition costs USD $1500. My family could, in way way whatsoever even consider this sort of expense. Yet today I can send my children up to Wiki to find information that is at least 90% as accurate (or more as Wiki). Yes other resources do exist, but do remember that for the really credible sites they are pay to view. For the free sites, either they tend to be company sponsored (making them even more unrealiable than Wiki) or we know nothing about the authors, making them even more suspicious and less trustworthy. Fair enough, Wiki may not be as rigourous (as Britannica), but it certainly makes information so much more accessible. When researching for journalism I have used it - particularly for factual information like histories of brands, formula one races or similiar. And it does provide really good information in this area. It tends to pull together a lot of scattered resources, making it easy to find information ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/69 "2009-08-21T11:00:31Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > When researching for journalism I have used it - particularly for factual information like histories of brands, formula one races or similiar. And it does provide really good information in this area. It tends to pull together a lot of scattered resources, making it easy to find information Be mindful of relying too much on this sort of stuff, though. I agree Wiki is _brilliant_ as an overview of most subjects, but if I was doing a backgrounder or a feature I’d be making very sure I checked some of the references and did a bit of my own research for anything important. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/70 "2009-08-21T11:25:34Z")
I know an example of harm done! This is an excerpt from [_“Founder Shares Cautionary Tale of Libel in Cyberspace”_](http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org//news.aspx?id=17798&SearchString=wikipedia) by Brian J. Buchanan, First Amendment Center Online Managing Editor The founder referred to is John Seigenthaler, founder of The First Amendment Center in Nashville. If you read the entire one page article, you will know that this could not have happened to a more decent gentleman. > [@](#): > > The anonymously posted Wikipedia biography said Seigenthaler had been suspected of involvement in the assassinations of President John Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and that he had defected to the Soviet Union in 1971. > > Seigenthaler — who was a friend of President Kennedy’s and Robert Kennedy’s administrative assistant — chronicled his odyssey in trying to get the false material deleted from Wikipedia and find out who had put it there and why. The results of his efforts, though partially successful, he said, remain unsatisfactory overall. > > Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, Seigenthaler said, was amenable to removing the false biography from public view — but not from the archives of his service. “Nothing could be killed,” Seigenthaler said Wales told him. The libeler was tracked down and what happens to him is a reminder of why this man has been one of my heroes since I moved to Nashville in the mid-1960s. While you are at The First Amendment Center website, have a look around. It’s a great source! ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/71 "2009-08-21T19:47:06Z")
Why should anything be removed from the archives? The archives are meant to be an accurate history of the development of each page, vandalism, errors, warts, and all. To expurgate the archives is an unreasonable request. Although they did end up doing it, didn’t they? ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_Stimulus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Digital\_Stimulus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_Stimulus)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/72 "2009-08-21T23:32:57Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Rather, it illustrates what happens when someone misuses it (anyone can misuse anything, so misuse is not a particular Wikipedan problem), and it illustrates a problem with Journalistic practices. T-shirt slogan: _Wikipedia_ doesn’t [del]kill[/del] misinform people, _people_ misinform people. ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/73 "2009-08-22T01:34:34Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Wikipedia is the single most significant development to come from the internet. No. But Wikipedia is more useful than Twitter. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/74 "2009-08-22T11:14:27Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Be mindful of relying too much on this sort of stuff, though. I agree Wiki is _brilliant_ as an overview of most subjects, but if I was doing a backgrounder or a feature I’d be making very sure I checked some of the references and did a bit of my own research for anything important. Not to worry - I did. And it was for something fairly innocuous anyway (like how many races in the first season of F1) ---
**Author:** ![bannerrefugee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c68b51/32.png) [@bannerrefugee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bannerrefugee)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2009, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/75 "2009-08-22T12:55:07Z")
It’s kind of a funny debate here for example. > **[Talk:American exceptionalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_exceptionalism)** > > This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2022 and 29 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Aclark0204 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Rachelchaban, Ssmit878. > > I recently edited some heavier-handed POV out of this subsection and tried to phrase it more as "a view of America First is-" rather than "America believes that-." I believe this section still needs work though, as it has be... ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/76 "2009-08-27T00:46:22Z")
I used to tell students not to use it, but that’s about like telling them “don’t read those Cliff Notes of WAR AND PEACE that are sitting there on the table next to WAR AND PEACE”, and besides that it’s a tad hypocritical since I use it all the time. Instead I now teach them _how_ to use it, with emphasis on “\*\*DO NOT USE ANYTHING FROM WIKIPEDIA THAT IS NOT CORROBORATED ON A RELIABLE SOURCE \*\*(_and then use the other source when writing your paper_)” And I explain about the padlocked versus un-padlocked articles. Keeping such things in mind, it’s actually a useful research tool. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/77 "2009-08-27T02:50:20Z")
Don’t forget using a specific page’s revision to cite, rather than just the page itself. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/78 "2009-08-27T03:16:47Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > A lot of that depends how popular the article is. If an article isn’t popular, it’s entirely possible that the link _was_ valid when the article was written (check the history), but since then it’s fallen into disuse and no-one has been maintaining the article to update it. > > Or, occasionally, someone it deliberate inserting an iffy (or non-existent) reference to push a POV, but again, it depends on the article. I’ve seen that a few times. Both times it was website maintaince that changed the cite’s url. Fixing it was just a matter of updating the url. I suppose if the document was completely gone you could use the wayback machine if it’s been archived in the Internet Archive. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/79 "2009-08-27T03:34:23Z")
> [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](#): > > I’ve seen that a few times. Both times it was website maintaince that changed the cite’s url. Fixing it was just a matter of updating the url. > > I suppose if the document was completely gone you could use the wayback machine if it’s been archived in the Internet Archive. This is a major problem with articles on Japanese topics. All the major Japanese-language news sites take down their articles within a month (at the latest). So if you’re dealing with a news topic from a year ago, often the only contemporary information you can find is on blogs (which, of course, are not a verifiable source). ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2009, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930/80 "2009-08-27T03:40:11Z")
It’s pretty good about drugs. Legal ones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-case-against-wikipedia/506930.md?page=5)