Comments on: Wired cites Wikipedia as a source

By: Zorm

Zorm — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 07:51:25 +0000

Ok, I here this argument over and over that wikipedia is bad because it can be changed at anytime. But perhaps instead of making this argument someone wakes up and smells the… well wiki. It has mechanisms so that you can see who changed what and when. How ’bout we start teaching users to use this feature properly so that they can confirm something as being ‘fact’ instead of a random defacement?

It should become clear rather quickly if numbers are being changed all the time that one needs to go and find another source for this information. Simply put use wikipedia the way its designed instead of trying to make it the holy grail for information.

By: Sarah Beth

Sarah Beth — Wed, 09 May 2007 13:40:42 +0000

It’s interesting to hear that the count of errors Wikipedia has compared to other sources (I’ve heard them compared to Brittanica online) is about equal, surprisingly.
But it does seem that for any info you can find there, you could find a less changeable source (e.g. print pubs).

By: David Bradley

David Bradley — Wed, 02 May 2007 14:28:57 +0000

Wiki on Wired? Weird!

I think on the whole Wikipedia is a great site for reminding yourself of basic facts you probably already know. Like the year of the Battle of Hastings or the pH of sulfuric acid, for instance. But, I certainly wouldn’t trust it on anything religious, political, ethical, moral, controversial………