How Much do you Trust Wikipedia?
- Thread starter interspark
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As a history student, I use its historical articles for references like, "hey, when did Justinianus ascend to Imperial power again?"
But I don't use it as a source. Not because I believe in the 'wrongness' of wikipedia, but because you don't know who wrote it, and that makes citing it a bit harder.
Also, I do feel that a lot of the historical articles are... not quite right. Not absolutely wrong, but not quite right.
But I don't use it as a source. Not because I believe in the 'wrongness' of wikipedia, but because you don't know who wrote it, and that makes citing it a bit harder.
Also, I do feel that a lot of the historical articles are... not quite right. Not absolutely wrong, but not quite right.
The problem is it's open to anyone. That's good and bad. In a scholastic sense or research sense it's very, very bad. Not everyone can give valid information on Meteorology, but anyone can write some crap in the wikipedia entry. Any article you see with all those qualifiers in front of it isn't the sort of thing you can include in a scientific paper or serious prose of any kind.
I find it's usually pretty accurate. For example, go try to change the information in an important article. You can't!
History is heavily political for many people. It shouldn't be. I mean, historians and people who talk about history should have a little freaking integrity, but most people still impose their personal beliefs on history. I'll do it a little in casual conversation (the KKK were "bad" or some such), but a true discussion of history should be about what HAPPENED, and not interpreting it on a moral scale.Spinozaad said:
"This decision did not work out as the people who enacted it probably planned" is much better than saying "this decision was wrong/bad" in a historical sense. Most public school/college historical materials I have read have been heavily politically biased. See, if you present the facts honestly, the horrible atrocities will still be totally obvious as such without the point needing to be hammered painfully into the skulls of the students.
In short, I agree with you that many historical articles are not quite right. I believe the cause to be the insertion of present opinions into past events.
I dont use wikipedia for facts I just use it to point me in the right direction. its like your friend that tells you something and you go.. "huh I should look into that."
i trust it enough to use it as the source of information for my homework and research. if i'm willing to risk getting into Uni by using it, i must really trust it.
Pretty well actually, it's well moderated (usually) and lists all it's sources (usually). So it's possible to check out most of the info anyways.