Wikipedia socially inept or socially accurate? |
Earlier this week a Microsoft employee came under fire for contacting an Australian author over doing some “work” to edit a Wikipedia article. Mostly lost in that message over the furor of “how dare [Microsoft]” was the accuracy of the Wikipedia entry brought into question. A few noticed and focused on that, but most went with the more salicious attack on Microsoft. Almost every time I write something about Wikipedia, I feel compelled to write about the accuracy and not being comfortable using it as the only source.
Looks like more scholarly types than me have the same issue and continue to criticize Wikipedia.
Inisheer writes “History professors at Middlebury College are tired of having all their students submit the same bad information on term papers. The culprit: Wikipedia — the user-created encyclopedia that’s full of great stuff, and also full of inaccuracies.”
I agree with the professors and if I was a teacher, I’d send anything back from students that used Wikipedia too.
Curious to see if this blog’s history reinforced my reluctance to cite Wikipedia as a source, I searched how many times Wikipedia has been mentioned since July 4, 2003: a mere 41 times (41 out of 4143 = 0.009% — slightly less than 1%). ‘Encarta’ has only scored 2 mentions over the same time.
Personally I think the same people who have given Wikipedia power, have weakened the accuracy of information over excessive micromanagement of the details from people in the know. It’s one thing to fight for accurate facts, but it’s quite another to create a hostile environment for those with the facts to be able to participate, usually by more experienced Wikipedians. It might purely be perception on myself and other parts that this hostile environment exists, but that’s what has kept me away in the past and continues to keep me away from having much direct involvement and interest in Wikipedia.
Here’s my question about your blog or in every day business: how often do you cite Wikipedia? Do you doublecheck other sources in addition to Wikipedia or feel comfortable citing Wikipedia standalone?
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I disagree. If you use Wikipedia for science papers, then you need to make sure the data is correct. For social things such as entries on Battlestar Galactica, anime, books, and authors, not to mention obscure facts, it’s been a boon for the community.
I think that Wikipedia is one of the best resources out there currently if you use it correctly. Too many people don’t.
Comment by darkmoon — January 28, 2007 @ 9:43 am PST
Why the ‘if you use it correctly’ part, darkmoon? Why should an encyclopedia need any ifs, ands or buts? I’m not saying the Wikipedia is worthless, but it would seem to me that the sources the Wikipedia are using are the true sources, not the Wikipedia. So if you are going to teach your students to go to the horses mouth than using the Wikipedia might be used, yes, but shouldn’t be the only source.
Comment by TDavid — January 28, 2007 @ 9:58 am PST
Then why use Wikipedia?
Comment by orangecrush — January 28, 2007 @ 10:20 am PST
You guys are the ones saying it’s inaccurate. From what I’ve used it for, I’ve never seen inaccuracies. Doesn’t mean I won’t, but a lot of people have said all this “X,Y,Z” about how Wikipedia is inaccurate, but comparative to other sources, it’s really no different on the facts. In fact, I would assume that with a lot more peer review, it would be better than worse.
This is the same as code review. You always want a thousand eyes watching you code instead of a limited amount of people since people glance over bugs and people read differently. Similar thought process.
Comment by darkmoon — January 28, 2007 @ 10:34 am PST
Come on, darkmoon, you’ve “never” seen any inaccuracies in Wikipedia? I find that one really hard to swallow, mon. If you are comparing accuracy to what, other encyclopedias? I’d choose other encyclopedias with peer review, 99.5% of the time.
Comment by TDavid — January 28, 2007 @ 10:41 am PST
Here’s an article to peruse, darkmoon:
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/opinion/story/0,,1599325,00.html
In that entry Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales admits some of the entries are a “horrific embarassment.”
And a Google search will reveal thousands more like it.
Larry Sanger on what is wrong with Wikipedia (emphasis mine):
I maintain what I wrote back in December 2005 that I’m more positive than negative on what Wikipedia is trying to do. However, just like the open directory project, there are problems when too many cooks get in the kitchen.
The same is true of code, darkmoon. More eyes doesn’t always mean better code. Yes, open source is great, but there are still a relatively small number of lead developers on open source projects, just as there an elite few leading the way on Wikipedia articles. The problem is those elite few in the Wikipedia case have no peer review process that Mr. Sanger pointed out and when somebody comes along that could offer first party validation, they are discouraged from participating.
Comment by TDavid — January 28, 2007 @ 10:52 am PST
You misinterpret my code analogy. I’m not bored enough to dig it out of my CS books from college, but for troubleshooting, you want more eyes on it, not less. One coder, lots of eyes. I didn’t say many coders rewriting the same code. I said, that many eyes to correct mistakes.
Wikipedia has “one writer” lots of eyes to correct it. I have yet to see any encyclopedia that changes with the times as quickly or rapidly as Wikipedia. For instance, day of Karl Rove’s trial, entry got changed. What other source can you say does that?
There isn’t one. I suppose you can say that there’s mistakes deriving from more uncommon events and/or subject matters, and that’s where Wikipedia would not have enough eyes upon the matter. But in most cases, I’ll still use Wikipedia over other resources. I mean, name one point of entry that you can find things such as Gun Sword, and Karl Rove updated to the T at the current time? There isn’t one. Encyclopedias (such as Britannica) are updated yearly. Things change a lot in that amount of time.
Comment by darkmoon — January 28, 2007 @ 11:47 am PST
I’ll give another example. When you mention accounting history for my product line: Merchant’s Mirrour comes up pretty much in the Wikipedia entry alone. Wikipedia requires citations or mentions when there is none.
I suppose I could find accounts of Merchant’s Mirrour in older historical books in the library, but as a one-stop shop, Wikipedia provides me with way more information quickly enough without having to go troll for little-known resources.
I don’t write papers anymore (nor did I much in college being a comp. sci. major), but I really fail to see the resource perspective. In every paper I’ve ever written, you had to support your arguments with at least three or more source citations anyways.
Comment by darkmoon — January 28, 2007 @ 11:51 am PST
I don’t really look to an encyclopedia for frequently updated news, I have RSS for that
Yearly updates are fine for a historical updates. I think it’s cool that Wikipedia updates so fast and you are right, darkmoon, I can’t name another source that does that like they do, which leads back to me saying I’m more positive toward them than negative. However, when I do research on something Google is my first choice, not Wikipedia, and when Wikipedia is the first result in Google I’m more likely to go further down the list of results before visiting the Wikipedia entry.
Others mileage may vary.
Comment by TDavid — January 28, 2007 @ 12:01 pm PST
Since July 4, 2003, I’ve mentioned “wikipedia” at 80 times out of 1,417.
80/1417 = 5.64%
Comment by Andrew Ferguson — January 28, 2007 @ 3:15 pm PST
I usually have enough prior knowledge of the topics I consult Wikipedia for that I can discern which articles are reliable. The authoritative articles list sources, references, and external links where I can fact-check.
Comment by Vince Williams — January 28, 2007 @ 3:42 pm PST
[…] More doubts cast over the reliability of Wikipedia, this time in reporting the correct status of a famous actor and comedian’s heartbeat. […]
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