trust in wikipedia

[nemesiss]

im quite curious how much trust do you have in wikipedia as a source.
so to start the discussion, i wrote down some questions...

how often do you use wikipedia?
what kind of information do you look for?
what kind of pages do you trust to be accurate?
to what extend do you trust certain pages?

 

[Inferno]

I use Wiki quite a lot. Reason: A study conducted in... '08 I think... showed that it contained no more errors than any other encyclopaedia, including the "Britannica".
That being said, I only use it for basic information, to get a first feel for the topic. Then I check up on the sources and can refine my internet search.

What kind of pages I trust is difficult. I have used incorrect pages before, because mistakes can happen. Rule of thumb: All .edu, all University pages, all governmental pages of democracies and sites recommended by those sites are trustworthy. There are a few pages you just have to discover. Science Friday, coursera.org, project-reason.org, learner.org, cochrane.org, bad science blog and evoled.org to name but a few of the ones I've discovered.
There are some nice people who you already trust who link to good pages.

To what extent do I trust them? At some point, you have to use one source or another. You can't check everything.

 

[Isotelus]

I think my favourite phrase when it comes to Wikipedia is: "it depends".

how often do you use wikipedia?

Well, it depends. :lol:

Well, unless it's for something silly and random, I never use it as a source if I'm debating with someone, and obviously using it as a source in academia is a huge no no, for the simple reason that it's not peer reviewed, not necessarily up to date, or it can contain incorrect information. Admittedly I only see wrong or out of date information rarely, but when I have, it's in pages on topics that aren't popular or mainstream, e.g Paleogeography of Equus conversidens, or women in Roman history.

On the other hand, I have occasionally used Wikiepedia's reference sections to find links to papers or books I am searching for.

what kind of information do you look for?

For things that are trivial and/or that you don't necessarily need to cite, like, I don't know, the melting point of Bismuth , or if I'm curious as to when a particular movie was made. Sometimes if I forget something like the spelling of a certain stage in the Cretaceous, or the scientific name of a certain species of bird, then Wikipedia is a perfectly adequate source to retrieve that information.

what kind of pages do you trust to be accurate?
to what extend do you trust certain pages?

I'll lump these two together. I do not trust pages that are lacking citations and a good reference section. The best, most accurate pages will have links and cite to peer-reviewed papers, books, certain websites, etc where necessary. I find pages like this generally cover topics that the public is interested in or is widely studied and researched, like dinosaurs, or stars and planets. Also, a good wiki page will include research findings and theories that conflict with each other, and provide the evidence for each. I would trust these the most, but as I said, I would still not use it as a citation under any circumstances.

So, my personal rule is to use Wikipedia with a level of caution. It's certainly useful and informative for little tidbits of information, but I don't depend on it.

 

[Gunboat Diplomat]

im quite curious how much trust do you have in wikipedia as a source.
so to start the discussion, i wrote down some questions...

how often do you use wikipedia?

All the God damned time, for both serious and trivial things...

what kind of information do you look for?

All sorts. I use it for both interesting trivia and as a reference for work...

what kind of pages do you trust to be accurate?

I trust all of it. I recognize that pages can be vandalized or amateurs can add poor information but, so far, it has yet to let me down...

to what extend do you trust certain pages?

I don't know, which pages are you talking about? I'm not sure you understand the sentence you just wrote, here...




I realize that an encyclopedia that literally anybody can modify on the spot is a scary thing and I was pretty skeptical when I had first heard of it too but when I checked a bunch of pages on topics I consider myself an expert on, I found that my fears were... unfounded. I don't exactly know how but this thing fucking works!

...and to all the people who have allegedly found errors in it, I hope you corrected those errors!

 

[Inferno]

...and to all the people who have allegedly found errors in it, I hope you corrected those errors!

Hell to the NO!
If I would, I'd have to re-write quite a lot of the stuff on Wiki. Very often there's simply not enough detail and that makes it inaccurate, but even so there are quite a few errors, but my time is, I hope, too valuable.

 

[CosmicJoghurt]

If you know how to use it it can be a real handy tool. Particularly the ability to fast-search terms within the articles themselves, and also the system they use for source quoting and stuff. If a statement isn't obliviously obvious, and it doesn't cite sources, don't rely on it.

It ought not be a basis for any kind of serious research but it can be a quick start into learning about the vocabulary and basic notions of a particular subject.

With that said, it's been months since I last posted on here. I missed this place.

 

[Master_Ghost_Knight]

how often do you use wikipedia?

Sometimes.

what kind of information do you look for?

Definitions and quick data references that are generally known and not likely to be mistaken

what kind of pages do you trust to be accurate?

There is no page that I trust to be 100% accurate. However pages about more known and less controversial topics are less prone to contain mistakes.

to what extend do you trust certain pages?

Used for quick checks only.
Ex. "Hey what the hell does this mean">"Wiki">"definition">"Ok, move along"
If it is serious work i can go like.
Ex. "What does Wiki say about this">"ok, I need to find a paper outside of wiki about this to check it and source it".