Poll: Is Wikipedia unreliable? (not in my opinion)

[Curlythelock]

I believe it to be very reliable, whenever I need to look something up wiki is my first stop.
I of course would never use it as an official reference for any research.

 

[Estocavio]

The way i see it, Wikipedia is heavily moderated, and i have never once read anything false on it. Therefore, im inclined to believe it.

 

[Agayek]

Now i have heard MANY a claims of Wikipedia being an unreliable source for info since anyone who knows how can alter the page.
I on the other hand have been informed of a way to see if it's all bullshit or not.

The cited sources section.

When i read a statement that seems false i just look down and see what the source is, then i will actually check the source to see if it's biased, credible, ect.

This also comes in handy on school projects and papers, don't read the articles just go to the sources and SHAZAAM!!! you just made your research a little bit easier. (results may vary)


So what do you think? Reliable or not?

(Also off topic, but has anyone else thought that maby encyclopedia dramatica is actually ,in a messed up way, less biased and in some cases more reliable in it's sources and facts? Just a thought.)

Wikipedia is almost always reliable. You should not use it as a source for academic or professional research/papers, but Wikipedia can generally be relied upon to be correct.

As long as you're smart about using it, and don't hold it up as irrefutable proof, it's a more than solid source.

 

[xXAsherahXx]

Pages that are viewed a lot tend to be monitored and edited to remain truthful. Pages, say, ones describing a school like mine (a shitty little school) will often have details very exaggerated.

 

[Xanadu84]

It's quite reliable. Whenever someone posts some blatantly false thing they found on wikipedia to demonstrate how unreliable it is, they forget to mention that that false thing managed to stay on wikipedia for almost a whole 2 minutes before someone noticed and changed it back. Wikipedia is a great source of information. It is also NOT A PRIMARY SOURCE! When doing a report, sure, you don't want to reference Wikipedia, but you also don't really want to reference an encyclopedia either. You want to find the references, and go to those for your research, because it is closer to the original text. Wikipedia is a great tool for research, and the fact that you check the sources and use those sources for reference means that you are using that tool properly.

 

[El_Chubba_Chubba]

Thing is, you need to ask yourself, what am would I use instead? Now, I doubt the answer is the encyclopedia britannica or something like that, but instead another webpage. Wikipedia is another web page, like any other, written by a random person. Who may or may not be qualified to write on the topic.

But, from my experience, it is very reliable. Any infomation that isn't I think is quite obviously manipulated or change, whether its as a joke or not.

 

[Cogwheel]

Sometimes, certainly, and it's not an acceptable reference.

That said, there was one time when I was looking stuff up about historical alchemy (it was incredibly helpful, by the way) and a friend I mentioned this to was going "NO WIKI LIES" and telling me not to believe a word it says because, presumably, microscopic internet falsehood rays will dissolve my brain.

That didn't happen, by the way. It was all rather silly.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

So what do you think? Reliable or not?

There have been several studies done that have proven that Wikipedia is the MOST accurate Encyclopdeia in the world.

It beats out Britanica by just a tiny bit.

 

[wadark]

It's mostly useless.

Not because anyone can edit it, but because the group of nutjobs that spend 40 hours a week "working" on it for nothing are all ultra pretentious whackos that love to keep stuff unreadable or useless to anyone who doesn't already have a degree in the field the definition comes from because it makes them feel intellectually superior or something.

I remember one time someone around here was asking what people thought about Noam Chomsky, and I tried to figure out wtf he was actually talking about and got this page which used the word "chomskian" about 1,200 times(not an exaggeration), but never actually explained what it meant.

You can check their sources, and maybe find something useful there, but those are often useless too.

I definitely don't think wiki is useless because its "open-editable" but you do bring up a good point. If I see or read or hear something and I want to know more about it, looking at Wikipedia is kind of hit-or-miss. Some subjects you can find a good summary and decently readable in-depth stuff. But certain subjects, particularly math and science, tend to assume that you already know a lot about the field. So you end up clicking links in wiki just to find out what this one paragraph means in the topic you REALLY want to know about.

Even some of the simpler mathematical concepts tend to quickly dive into incomprehensible techno-babble and images of equations that are only decipherable if you know the symbols being used.

Seriously, look up something simple like the Gambler's Fallacy. Its a pretty simply concept, but the article quickly gets complicated with mathematical terminology and algebra and such.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

Wikipedia is accurate cos screwing it up is surprisingly difficult. I actually tried it once just to see if it worked. There was a plane crash and I changed the number of deaths. Within seconds some goody-2-shoes had changed it back again.

 

[FalloutJack]

There's a reason that college professors will not accept it as a cited source. The places it can lead to, sure, but not Wiki itself.

Not reliable, no.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I can never stress enough the importance of double-checking your sources. But maybe this comic can do it for me: http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=58

 

[Conza]

Damn it! I voted yes, intending to vote no, sorry, would correct the vote if it had the option too.

It's as reliable as a polygraph, not admissable as evidence (eg. can't source wikipedia for school/college/university work), but it is almost always the truth.

 

[martin's a madman]

You have to jump through such hoops to edit nowadays. It's reliable.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Probably been ninja'd a dozen times already, but it isn't completely unreliable. They say that since anyone can edit it, but just check their sources. Can't use wikipedia for a school paper? Use it to find the sources you need.

 

[callit4]

You mentioning ED made me check the encyclopedia dramatica site and omg its back i was expecting the horrible ohinternet thing i guess it was just a very prolonged troll love you op =)

 

[dex-dex]

I see Wikipedia as a sketchy old guy who knows a bit about every thing.
it is a good place to get some information but you can't rely on it 100%

 

[marurder]

It depends on what you are looking for, for example, if I want information on say - the gestation period of a bilby (12-14 days smallest of all mammals) the report will probably be fairly reliable. If however I look up the American steak, it maybe more bias or more like an advertisement, other topics could be like scientology (both sides doing their own propaganda/agendas). I check the sources and also I check other websites, wiki is a great place to start but never a place to finish.