Is WIKIPEDIA really reliable?

[ditch_azeroth]

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reliable is such a subjective word. but generally, wikipedia is accurate. it's not perfect or fool proof, but it's accurate enough if you are a researcher. if you need cold hard stats, you have to rely on publications and journals gyud. for example, if you are conducting a social psychology experiment, you need to consult social psychology journals (i used to read a lot of them sa san carlos library) and use them as reference. of course, i apil gyud nimo sila sa biblio nimo.

[keczianthei]

dba anyone can edit if u have an account ddto?

[vern]

People usually think that if it's printed in some heavy compendium like The Encyclopaedia Britannica, then it must be the truth. What people don't realize is, it takes the same amount of cross-checking, resource-checking, editing and updating, to make sure that an "analog" (i.e. real-world) encyclopaedia is accurate and up-to-date, and an electronic one (i.e. Wikipedia and other wikis) up-to-date. In fact, even E.B. isnt always accurate--which is why they have this spare volume included, which contains last minute addenda and errata. Wikis are merely more convenient to edit and to browse, at least from my perspective, but if someone tells me that E. B. is more "credible" or "reliable" I'd roll my eyes.

-RODION

The very thing that makes Wikipedia so easy and so up-to-date is the very thing that makes it unreliable. While topics in Wikipedia that are locked and have aged are fairly reliable, new and controversial subjects are as good as word on the street.

[maynardmurlon]

It's accurate on the accepted "majority's" point-of-view. The same as any hard-file like EB, Websters, Groliers, etc., and any history books. Facts are obtained through testimonies and experiences and are being cross-checked now and then. You might notice that there are a lot of annotations to whether a certain article needs revision or wanting resources. It's like a real-time dissertation of a group of people around the world that is in real-time edition.

[toushiro]

I can say that it's reliable. It's one of the results that would pop up immediately once you google for something, making it undeviating.

[olmightysmiter]

how come some academe doesn't recommend it then?

[olmightysmiter]

...how come some academe doesn't recommend it then?

[rodsky]

...how come some academe doesn't recommend it then?

The academe doesn't necessarily enforce such a rule--they often suggest that, instead of "copy-and-pasting" items from the wiki entry, that the researcher dive down to the "Sources/Biblio" area of the entry and try to dig up more data, and perhaps even references to real world books/literature from that section.

The sad thing man gud with today's cut-and-paste society, it is so easy to plagiarize and copy stuff that yes, schools have a hard time trying to figure out of someone has in fact, written something totally on his/her own, or just dived into some Wikipedia entry and grandiosely presents what he/she seems to know about. Naturally, some instructors and professors react in a rather vehement way against this practice, and go to extreme measures sometimes, like specifically instructing their students not to use Wikipedia, but in my viewpoint that's also a narrow minded solution.

-RODION

[olmightysmiter]

hhhhmmmmmm

[burikoy12]

Dili man kasaligan ang Wikipedia. Kapila na ko kita ug mga discrepancies. For example, sa description sa usa ka island sa Leyte, ginaingon nga southside sa island is a marine sanctuary when in fact ang north side maoy sakto. Fortunately, daghang mga mata nga motan aw sa mga entries sa Wikipedia so makorekan dayon ang sayop, pero unsaon na lang tong mga sayop nga wala makit-i?