On this and other boards, an increasing number of posters cite Wikipedia as their reference source. Isn’t this free “encyclopedia” editable by anyone? As a quick and dirty reference point, I guess it gets you started, but using it as a cite reference? That seems to take a lot for granted.
Is there no better single source (and free) repository provided out there that doesn’t allow for individual (and relatively anonymous) edits?
TBB
It’s free and editable by anybody, or was until just recently, anyway. Write your own cite, make your point on the SDMB, then simply link to your own brilliance. What could be better?
October 23rd, 2005 at 8:33.25 pm (EST). Didn’t you get the memo?
It hasn’t.
This comes up all the time. The brief answers are:
It indeed makes a good starting point. Some of the articles are quite well written and quite well researched. Others are suspect, poorly done, and not up to state of the art in that field. Using it as a reliable cite is dangerous.
While a person can edit the info, it will rather quickly be erased if you’re not doing it as a member. And even then it’s subject to further editing.
I like it better than I use to, now that I understand what’s going on.
Wikipedia has become the default because it is easy and it covers a lot of topics, much as Google has become the search engine (and even the word for internet searching) for many people. That it covers so many topics in depth is likely one of the reasons so many people use it. Also, it’s typically written in everyday language. I can search PubMed and find articles - but a lot of times they will be so scientifically based (as they should be) that I don’t understand, not when I’m looking for general information on a topic.
Wikipedia is not perfect - but I use it as a starting point sometimes when I’m at the reference desk. For example, towards the end of the semester, I had a student beginning to work on a paper about a specific artist, but the student didn’t know much about the artist initially - and for most of our art encyclopedias, you need to know the nationality of the artist to even get to the right encyclopedia. So I found the artist in Wikipedia, got the nationality and then went to the print encyclopedias. When I do this, I explain to the student why I used it - and why I wouldn’t use it for a research paper.
And recently this article in Nature compared the Encyclopedia Britannica to Wikipedia and found that there aren’t that many differences between the two as far as accuracy.
Another single source? Well, there’s the Columbia Encyclopedia online. But compare these two entries for Nunavut:
Columbia Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
Not only is the Wikipedia entry more detailed, the population information is more current (2004 compared to 1996), further down the page it’s broken down into the population of the 10 largest municipalities.
There are also resources like Librarians’ Index to the Internet (which consists of links to information, not entries about specific topics) and the Internet Public Library - which, again, is a collection of links.
As an answer, this is more anecdotal than factual - and I think that’s what you’re more likely to get with this question. The exception is the part about another site -off the top of my head, these are the alternatives I can think of .
Call me old school, but what you find on Wikipedia is, like most other information available on the internet, subject to the whims and desires of the poster. There is no peer review and thus no reliability as to what is posted. Unfortunately, every lazy searcher using Wikipedia or even Google, finds something on their particular subject and just assumes it is correct and puts it out for everyone to see. I basically take anything found on the internet as a “possibility” and do not use it unless it can be substantiated by another source (usually printed). There is absolutely no control over anyone with an agenda or a burning point to prove to just go ahead and post absolute gabarge.
Call me skeptical but I have little faith in most so-called “information” that is posted.
Actually Dec. 14 
I like wiki, but even if you don’t trust it, it’s a great starting point. Many of the well written articles (and there are LOTS) have links to original source material that you’d have trouble location yourself.
Just to give you one reason I use it a lot here is that it has the best source of election results (going back decades) of any website I’ve ever found. There are many other categories of information like that to be found on wiki.
There is no short supply of quackery & misinformation in print. It all depends on where any cited work gets its source material.
Ignoring articles dealing with politics and opinions, I would qualify my earlier statement to those printed sources that are peer reviewed or have stood the test of time with regard to validity. My professional endeavors are in the scientific realm and my experience is that a lot of writers on the internet like to “toot their horn” on scientific material (or sell temselves or a product) rather than promote the advancement of knowledge.
One of the great shortcomings of the internet (and many on this board) is using anonymity to avoid fact in favor of promotion of self, ideals, or occupation. Don’t get me wrong, much useful information is exchanged but there is also a large amount of misinformation and the uninformed are left out there on their own.
Ease of use is high up there. As a rule of thumb encycylopedias in general are considered too general to be of use in a highly specialized debate about anything, but they certainly are good for confirming or reasserting more generalized points.
Wikipedia should be the first stop in topical research, not the last. Those > 1,000,000 external links are a gold mine that put DMOZ to shame.
I use Wiki as a clearinghouse for sources, or a guide as to where to look further. It’s not a final source in itself. It’s useful because it’s kind of like an annotated Google. Also Britannica’s hella spensive. Even so, as a factchecker I’ve come across several innacuracies in Britannica, but people DO tend to approach Britannica as a final source. At least Wiki is relatively transparent in its limitations. That is, if you know how it works; it’s true that too many people presume it’s put forth as being as authoritative as Britannica. As long as you use it for its strengths and not its weaknesses, it has great value.
I think of Wikipedia as being like the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. The book within the novel, that is.
I didn’t read “Hitchhiker”, so I guess I’ll look that up in wikipedia to see what you’re talking about.
Wikicite? 
I tell my friends that Wikipedia is an excellent resource, but it’s not so useful as an actual source for academic purposes. That said, in many cases, a Wiki article will be more or less accurate because if someone puts something in wrong, someone else will correct it (assuming it’s something relatively well known, anyhow). There’s a Penny Arcade comic from a few weeks ago showing an example of what can go wrong on a Wiki article, but if someone keeps doing this kind of thing, they can be banned from editing (either you create an account and log on, or they just track your IP).
That’s not to say a banned person can’t just move to another computer and repeat, but it’s an imperfect system. Wiki’s just a convenient place to look for information on, and the best Wiki articles will cite their own sources too.
Two and a half years ago I was a very active contributor and editor on Wiki (less so now that I’m actually doing work at my new job, but anyway…). I remember one incident where a class of university students in Hong Kong posted about 30 new topics in the space of an hour on various landmarks in Hong Kong, as part of their university course. Within minutes the text was cleaned up (the English wasn’t perfect) and edited by both me and half a dozen others (being in HK at the time I was able to edit for factual accuracy, and I wasn’t alone). It was quite startling to watch. And that as I said was 2 and a half years ago when there were far fewer contributors and editors - I received an e-mail at one stage asking me to vote on some change to Wiki, and I was asked on the basis that I was one of the top 2000 editors of the content. No way does Britannia have 2000 editors.
I have watched over time some of the entries I posted become extremely detailed and updated. My own anecdotal experience is that its very efficient and accurate.
I really like Wiki a lot.
I would never trust it for any serious research, like something going into a term paper, but what’s great about it is it has articles about stuff you’d never find in a real enclyclopedia, such as pop culture stuff, internet jokes.
Where else could you find a definative refrence that gives you a concise summary of what “Homestar Runner” or “All your base are belong to us” or “L337” or “Gizzoogle” means?
Also, the amount of stuff is huge. Most regular refrences stick to major facts, events, news: such as historical events, major scientific discoveries, world leaders.
Few encyclopedias or refrences would bother having an article for every major peer-to-peer client or for different extensions of SIP protocol or for information on George W. Bush’s terrier or numerous historical footnotes. I could continue…
As far as stuff where you just ask yourself “what the hell is that thing” It’s usually in wiki. A lot easier than googling it and wading through various sites until you find one that gives an upfront definition outright.