The Question of Wikipedia

The Future of Wikipedia

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051211/tc_afp/usinternetitwikipedia3

Found this article from Agence France-Presse via Yahoo Tech news, which is btw an extremely reliable news source in general for any of you research/college thesis minded individuals. Its raises to mind an important and constantly argued question on the subject of Wikipedia, which is: Will Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia ever truly become a reliable source and by the same token can any encyclopedia in fact be considered truly reliable?

I believe the news media is making a big event out of this, when it is really nothing.

A truely reliable source on every fact in the world is impossible. Wikipedia, as with any written material, is the sum of it's authors. The writings may be biased or otherwise slanted, for a purpose or unintentionally. Even if you compare it to Yahoo Tech news, I imagine that there has been atleast one article, at one point, somewhere, that got out with a wrong fact in it, that it's authors and editors didn't catch.

The press, encyclopedia companies, and other professional sources are simply trying to discredit Wikipedia. Of course, if I was quoting something, I would find a more authoritative source than any encyclopedia, unless I was trying to make a point regarding that particular encyclopedia.

Good point, not to mention encyclopedias are meant for general information. They quite frankly don't need to be perfect, just adequate enough for that purpose.

exactly I love wikipedia. I had lets say a poor nutrition problem from eating dorm food and it was causing effects that I won't say here. But I looked it up on wikipedia, I found what I was doing wrong stopped doing it and bam problem cured. Wikipedia has helped me out so many times.

Another interesting article today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

It's syndicated, so several major news sources are carrying it.

TalRW said:

exactly I love wikipedia. I had lets say a poor nutrition problem from eating dorm food and it was causing effects that I won't say here. But I looked it up on wikipedia, I found what I was doing wrong stopped doing it and bam problem cured. Wikipedia has helped me out so many times.

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I too have found Wikipedia immensely helpful and though its entries have not effected me in such an acute way I too have been helped out of a snag any number of times by the powerful Encyclopedia. I think my favorite part of it is Wikibooks though, which has played perhaps the most direct and important function in my life of any part of the Encyclopedia. Since I'm enrolled in quite a few Engineering courses and concepts are often confusing or abstract Wikipedia's Engineering section has more then once served to cristalize various topics and subjects along with giving new insight on ones I hadn't even thought of. Its also played a key role in my career planning and directl contributed to favorable grades on a number of midterms and finals. Thank you Wikipedia .

su root said:

Another interesting article today:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

It's syndicated, so several major news sources are carrying it.

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Thats interesting, though not unexpected. I suspect that Wikipedia will one day in the very near future surpass Britannica, which should be expanding its own entries and resources to compete. Instead it appears to be using coordinated smear tactics to discredit Wikipedia outlined by a new surge of spoofed encyclopedia enties that appeared there right after that article was published along with a string of equally fraudulent news articles such as one titled: "Founded On Porn, Wikipedia Shapes The Way You Thing" published by OfficialWire.

Wikipedia is extremely useful as a spring-board to further more in-depth research. There are no resources in the world that can claim to be an end-all-be-all but a few are quite good at what they actually do, which is being a good searchable reference.

I go there first to find other keywords I can use to narrow my searches to get only the results that will prove useful.

When you scale the errors per scientific article to the length of the wiki articles, then compare the articles to Britannica...Wiki comes out at least equal or better in terms of error rate. (So says /.)

I like wikipedia a LOT, it's a great place to get inspired, and their logic sections are all pretty much spot on.

Captain Newbie said:

When you scale the errors per scientific article to the length of the wiki articles, then compare the articles to Britannica...Wiki comes out at least equal or better in terms of error rate. (So says /.)

I like wikipedia a LOT, it's a great place to get inspired, and their logic sections are all pretty much spot on.

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Exactly. One other thing. Its one of the only online encyclopedias, or encyclopdias in general thats actually fun to browse. Just reading up on random, interesting topics is quite satisfying and productive too; to idle away hours exploring areas of interest and enjoy doing just that.