Is Wikipedia Ever Wrong?

[[Gavo]]

It's generally right, the most I've found (besides really stupid edits) are biased views.

My class was assigned to find discrepancies in Wikipedia for homework a year ago, everyone failed because no one could find anything wrong. The teacher dropped the assignment.

 

[Yureina]

Wikipedia is nice for quick searches, but it is most certainly not something you would use as a source for a serious research project. It is not "wrong", but its not "academic" either.

 

[fulano]

Science in wikipedia is pretty top notch...or at least that which has something to do with math.

Right now Wikipedia, or a project like it, is in its very infancy so most mistakes are understandable, but we also have to take into account that wikipedia is a buttload of different citations all jumbled together to form coherent content. The problem wouldn't be with Wikipedia itself necessarily, but ratehr with the citations.

But yeah, in cases, the citations are wrong as hell. Take for example the article of my home city Hermosillo, in the state of Sonora, Mexico; the wikipedia article is full of references that make no sense to me, and even goes as far as to claim that we have purified water on every home with running water which is aload of BS.

 

[Johnlives]

It is the font of all human knowledge.

 

[Cornish]

It's inaccurate and wrong at times, mostly because of misconception or poor sources; but it's still very helpful.

And yes, most mathematical entries are damn accurate.

 

[Furioso]

I once changed the World War 1 article to read "the war was ended by an atomic bomb" didn't stay there very long but that shows you how untrustworthy it is if some bored person like me can do that

 

[Darkenwrath]

The science articles you can generally trust, but it's better to simply follow the citation and use them instead if you need the information for something important.

 

[Beryl77]

I don't really remember it very well but I once read an article which said that Porsche produces toy cars and some other silly stuff.

 

[superbatranger]

I think I've seen obvious errors on Wikipedia around 5 times. All of them were corrected within the hour.

 

[Ravek]

I've seen plenty of nonsense on wikipedia. Most of it in niche articles though.

 

[skitzo van]

Yes, it told me "Carry on my Wayward son" was written by "The Beetles", and that they were very high when they wrote it

 

[IxionIndustries]

I don't really believe in it, because the Wikipedia moderators are pretty quick to rectify the articles.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Wikipedia has as high an accuracy rate as Encyclopedia Britannica (somewhere in the mid 90s percentage range). Nothing is always right, but its about as accurate as you can get.

That has been my experience as well. I've actually found more errors in my college textbooks than in wikipedia entries dealing with science.
On the other hand, I've found this on the prohibition article a while back:
"Prussia completely bans the production, importation or consumption of babies and imposes strict penalties on those violating the ham, including weeks to months of tickleing, and possible lashes"

Wikipedia is fine for research on subjects, and higher level scientific fields, because nobody bothers to change those except for the people who know their stuff in the first place. Political figures, and anything popular/controversial is a bit of risk though. The best idea is to use Wiki to get a basic idea or to look up a term, but to use "real" databases (note: you can forget about the ones you learn about in school, those are awful and absolutely useless) for the subsequent report.

 

[crudus]

I saw an article on Mice that said they were secretly planning to take over the world.

That is true. Douglas Adams wrote it down in his book. Mice are actually smarter than humans!

OK, we all know the old adage: 'You can't trust Wikipedia, it can be edited by anyone!' But... how often do you find that to be true? I personally use it as my go-to source of information, and when I go to other sites to check some other facts they always seem to agree with Wikipedia.

So, how often do you find Wikipedia to be wrong? And, as a bonus question, what would you say is the clearest mistake you've ever seen on there?

I have only seen one mistake. It is on the Bob & Tom wiki page. It lists 30 people who are friends on the show when only about a fourth of that actually are; the others are just one time guest stars. Wikipedia is wrong just about as often as any other source of information. While it can be edited by anyone it is constantly monitored by employees of Wikipedia (or volunteers, I am not sure which) who check vandalism and things of that nature. The thing is people assume you are too stupid to realize when Wikipedia is wrong and when it is right by comparing it to other sources. Now that I think about it, I have seen Wikipedia wrong less often than sources actually accepted academically.

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

the thing is that how do you know you can trust any other information on the web, and as long as you check citations its all ok

 

[Kebabco]

I actually saved one of the funnier (stupider) wiki-entries i happen to see online:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/118/wikipediafuckingup.jpg

Tell me what you think.

 

[Rafe]

People always say that you can't trust it, but its always seemed 100% true to me and I've never been called out on using it in school.

But then again, how would I know if it's true or not?

 

[Icehearted]

I actually saved one of the funnier (stupider) wiki-entries i happen to see online:

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/118/wikipediafuckingup.jpg

Tell me what you think.

I think that looks like it was written by someone from Encyclopedia
Dramatica.