How Much do you Trust Wikipedia?

[pakker]

I trust it to win my bets on random information, it's really awesome for that Also a great place to get basic facts down when you need to study some subject (be it math or history), and the further reading part is sometimes pretty interresting

 

[Anticitizen_Two]

I trust Wikipedia. I occasionally use the citations to make sure, though.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

I trust a good deal of it, I know I shouldn't, but it is so convenient.

 

[brunt32]

Depends on what I'm looking up.

 

[Dirty-Zombie]

I use it for just random things. But not for university.

 

[JayDub147]

Well, since the majority of the sources for any of my papers can be found at the bottom of the wikipedia page about its subject, you can imagine how much I trust it.

 

[darkonnis]

wikipedia? its great! I think that with most subjects, its 100% reliable, and as for things like wars (ww2 in particular) i've read so many books with different accounts in, its not that it isn't right, it just has one of the many sides to the story. Considering its free, you can't really beat it.

 

[Emz]

I believe I recall reading it has more correct information than all the Encyclopaedia Britannicas combined so I certainly trust it.

 

[Falseprophet]

I see Wikipedia as a microcosm for the internet as a whole: it's great for looking up quick and dirty facts (what is the capital of Peru/will it rain tomorrow/who starred in The Big Lebowski), but I wouldn't use it to solve world hunger. I use it every day since it's probably the best source of pop culture knowledge around.

HOWEVER, what scares me about Wikipedia is that there are dozens of other websites out there that just copy and paste information from it assuming it's fact, and some of those times when Wikipedia is wrong, it's copied on dozens of other websites and gets pushed up to the top of Google search rankings as a result. I've seen this happen a few times now, and it's worrisome.

 

[Necrofudge]

I trust them with my very life.
They even go to the trouble of announcing with a big flashy sign that some pages require work.
Thats just a good way of running things

But... I wouldn't use it to write an essay unless I didn't think it was important.


Also:

I believe I recall reading it has more correct information than all the Encyclopaedia Britannicas combined so I certainly trust it.

...what?
That only makes sense in the context that even though a lot of what Wikipedia says is wrong, it still has more total information (with maybe 80% being right) than Encyclopedia Britannica. But I doubt the ratio of correct to total is better.

 

[AMMO Kid]

Once I looked up Abraham Lincoln and it said the he was Pikachu's cousin...

Another time I looked it up and it said that Nicolas Cage had the ability to bust guy's balls by using his mind powers.

Well, that pretty much sums up my Wikipedophile Wikipedia experience.

 

[Ham_authority95]

On a scale from 1-10, I would give it a 7

Its fun for simple fact finding, but I would never use it for something like a report.

 

[Thedayrecker]

I use it, but I wouldn't cite it on a paper

 

[Double A]

I trust it quite a lot. If there are mistakes, they tend to get fixed quite quickly, and are usually very obvious.

I do to, they have a software program which gets rid of all the really obvious ones, and the OCD's take care of the rest.

 

[Bluesclues]

From what I understand some time ago they made it a policy to site your sources or anything you post will be removed. So Wikipedia nowadays tends to be a lot more accurate. So I'd have to say I trust it a lot more these days.

 

[likalaruku]

All I know is that if you make a contribution to Wikipedia that doesn't have a citation & an explanation for adding or removing something in the discussion area, it's usually removed/replaced within 24 hours.

 

[theultimateend]

Ive been thinking a lot lately about how people often say you cant trust wikipedia because anyone can write on it, personaly, thats exactly why I DO trust it! As an advert would probably say "How can two billion squillion people be wrong?!" so what do you think? How much do you trust wikipedia?

sorry, there was going to be a poll but i pressed enter instead of tab and... long story short there isnt!

I tend to think faith is a good example of "Just because a lot of people think it doesn't mean it is correct." but I would also point out that unlike that, many Wikipedia entries have copious sources.

I've seen some statements that are sourced to 10-15 different legitimate sources.

It's more accurate than Britannica at least.

 

[Druyn]

Fairly well-known topics, yes. Anything less, no. I follow your statement, OT. That many people cannot be mistaken, although mistakes are made. I never use wikipedia as my only source, but I do use it avidly.