I like Wikipedia, it’s interesting to browse and lots of the information I find there is a jumping off point for further research on things that interest me. Of course it’s wise to have multiple sources when searching for information to support your point of view. But if say, you just want to find out more about that vegetable you saw in the store called a Chinese cal-trop (raises hand!) it’s great.
Your son should be looking for at least 1 or 2 supporting cites. Occasionally the articles are not correct even for grade school level use.
Wikipedia is probably the best first site check for most things at this point.
Jim
Anyone questioning Wikipedia should keep in mind that all reference works are suspect. There are plenty of errors in Encylopedia Britannica (even leaving aside the inevitable timeliness errors). And academics are no more immune to bias than anyone else.
I’m not ‘bitching and moaning’ I’m offering CONSTRUCTIVE AND LOGICAL CRITICISM and was also started the OP, if you’d read it, to find out answers, which I did (thanks, guys). I can’t hit you, MG, b/c you’re app. female, so- to the moon, MG!
I also LOVE WIKIPEDIA, I appreciate your comments KellyM, and I understand that hosting a vB on your site would be too much to handle. But what about a vB somewhere away from the site, all about Wiki? Again, I understand that they cost money and such. Also, I read on Wiki that some people have some kind of sites where they chat about Wiki? I should check those.
Then why is this in the Pit? I mean, this is the ‘bitching and moaning’ forum. If you were really intent on posting constructive criticism, why didn’t you start a thread titled “Some Ideas On Improving Wikipedia” over in IMHO?
andrewdt85
Your OP did sound more like bitching and moaning then Constructive criticism.
Try rereading it and you’ll see how the B&M could be seen.
Jim
This does not even merit a response.
So you are offering “constructive criticism”, eh? That must be why you used terms such as “a fucking joke”, “clunky”, “crappy”, and “archaic”. Yeah, that sounds pretty constructive to me.
For the record, I think that you are a cretin. There, that’s andrewdt85-brand constructive criticism for you.
Stupid question: What is EB?
Encylopedia Britannica
Nothing is perfect but the Encyclopedia Britannica is light years ahead of Wiki when it comes to credibility. There’s a few reasons:
- If it’s written in EB, then whoever wrote it has some level of expertise on the subject. If you’ve looked at EB online it gives background information on the authors that write the given articles, and while not all of them are Ph.D’s, all of them that I’ve looked at show clear qualifications to actually write on the subject.
With Wikipedia, you get the handle of the person that wrote the article. You have no idea if this person is qualified, you can hope that the Wiki community has vetted the article somewhat, but depending on the article that isn’t always the case.
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If the article is in EB, you know that it’s been at least looked over by an editorial staff and that it’s supposed to be there (yeah, there may be typos and etc, nothing is perfect.) With Wiki the page you’re looking at could have recently been messed with by someone just trying to deface a Wiki, page this happens pretty often, especially on current events type entries.
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If it’s in EB more people will accept it as a cite for various different purpose (although for any serious research ANY general research text isn’t going to be sufficient.)
Wiki does have some advantages over EB:
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Price, I shelled out quite a bit for my entire set of leatherbound Encyclopedia Britannica’s.
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The much maligned search engine is probably faster than getting the book off the shelf, and flipping to the correct page. Especially if the topic you are looking for isn’t under the article title you would expect, then you have to use the index volume.
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It’s more current. “Plamegate” doesn’t have an entry in EB.
You’re absolutely right on all three accounts of course. I also am the proud owner of the EB :D. I paid 1,000 for mine, 2005 edition, new. You?
Anyways, yeah, the anonymous and often spelling-challenged authors and questionable (sometimes wrong) facts that don’t get changed b/c they are in obscure articles are prices we must pay, I suppose, for being able to read an article on practicly everything in the universe.
Okay, 
I’m exaggerating a little bit, but Wikipedia has an article on 12.5 times as many subjects as the EB (compare 65 thousand to 822 thousand). I’m aware that some topics are not worth much, and some basic topics don’t have good or long articles, and many topics are still missing (check the page of requested topics; it’s HUGE), and added to our previous criticisms, that’s plenty of things to complain about. But I think that, instead of just insulting Wiki like many Dopers do, why not just spend more time on Wiki fixing the problems you see?
That’s how it works, after all.
Too much to handle? I think not. Wikipedia is at least 2 orders of magnitude larger than the largest vB site. It’s just not the right tool for the job.
Why, when we have the Wiki? If you really want to get into metadiscussion about community, there the Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, but that’s a pretty slow neighborhood, mainly used for community coordination across all projects. There are also IRC channels (hosted on freenode.net) and several mailing lists (none of which are likely worth reading for the casual editor). Frankly, a forum would just tend to distract from the project, which is to write an encyclopedia. Wikipedia isn’t intended to be a social gathering place.
True indeed. I guess the way I feel is, well… okay, this is kinda wierd, so brace yourself. Having been on the Dope for a while, I feel a sense of community here, even though we’re all just a bunch of people on computers many miles away from each other, typing and looking at screens (except Dopefests, or people who know each other). The reason is b/c of the layout of vB, which helps you feel surrounded by the users as you discuss in a thread and enter forums; at Wiki, you enter the individual forums to discuss something, but hardly anyone even discusses anything (although one person eventually responded- and helpfully!- to my recent posting), and so it’s just a page w/ messages on it- no sense of community. I guess a vB is about as community as a site can get w/o losing prose and intelligence (ie by using avatars and conversing in real time).
But, as you and someone on there said, ‘at Wikipedia, we don’t talk about things, we write articles about them.’ I don’t need to feel community there, I love it for what it is.
Well, I’m reasonably proud my plot summary for Watchmen has been left (mostly) intact for about three weeks.
I don’t think you meant anything ill by it and were just joking around, but you kinda-sorta need to work on your kidding around skills when conversing with obviously female posters. The “to the moon” joke is less funny and more creepy these days as the (whether intended or not) threat of giving someone a physical smack down.
Stupider question: Where did the “Wiki” part of Wikipedia originate? I don’t recognize that prefix.
Thanks, I should have known they’d have an entry on themselves. :smack:
The name was based on the Hawaiian term wiki wiki, meaning “quick” or “informal.” It is used commonly in Hawaii as part of its rich “pidgin English”— the native language of the islands.
Jim
From the Wiki Wikipedia entry:
Wiki has also been backronym-ed as “What I Know Is”.
Now wiki wiki down to your local tiki bar and get me a beer.
Stranger