If you Deny Ignorance...then don't Wiki

News agencies sure relied on Wikinews when the Tsunami hit as well as during Katrina the coverage was equaled by no one. There are some things Wikipedia are good at and some things its bad at and frankely I'm not surprised that the Right is taking the opportunity to smear the entire project due to a few bad points. I guess a few rotten apples ruins the whole site. If that's the case I guess ATS will NEVER be a reliable source of information I post a link to a few peer reviewed articles and it's not reliable because the reference came from an unreliable source. Get where I'm coming from?

[edit on 19-10-2005 by sardion2000]

Saint4god says:

FINALLY! Somebody recognizes! The concept of the Wikipedia is fundamentally flawed. To have an 'editable' encyclopedia is as asinine as this billboard:

Nonsense. Encyclopediae are edited all the time, since our knowledge base constantly changes. Hint: Look up "space exploration" in a 1963 Encyclopedia Britannica.

I will agree that who edits the encyclopedia has a bearing on how accurate it is, but that's a problem with all editions. If Wikipedia wants to have the same panache as Britannica, it's going to take a long time to build up their reputation, and one important way to do it is to check and double-check and triple-check all editions to hope that the updated and edited information is correct.

I find it very disrespectful to those who are life-long students of english, history, etymology, theology, biology and just about any other 'ology' you can think of.

I don't. I agree with Zedd et.al. that we need to be skeptical of everything we read and double-check our sources; that that's a given with anything. I like to consider myself, at my advanced age, a "life long student of etc. etc." and I like the way that Wiki allows people the opportunity to do some (usually correct) research with a couple of mouse-clicks.

Perfect? Hardly. But it's certainly better than the "scholarship" of someone who bases his views of UFOs on Jeff Rense -- or his views of astronomy, biology, and geology solely on the Bible.

Originally posted by chebob

There's your sign

Woot!

Originally posted by Spreadthetruth
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!

Can't breath!!!!

Is there a website where you can purches these signs?? I'll pay big money!! lol

Well, there's more like:



at: www.timstouse.com...

Well guess what?

Wikipedia founder 'shot by friend of Siegenthaler'

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has been shot dead, according to Wikipedia, the online, up-to-the-minute encyclopedia.

Apparently, the assassin was a "friend" of the victim of a recent controversy which ironically, smeared former Robert F Kennedy aid John Seigenthaler as a suspect in the assassination of both Kennedy brothers. That claim, which the site carried for several months, along with the assertion that Seigenthaler had lived in Russia, was eventually proved false.
Click Here

"At 18:54 EST on December 12, John Seigenthaler's wife, who was infuriated at Wikipedia regarding the recent scandal regarding his role in the Kennedy Assassination, came into the house, where Jim was having dinner. Wearing a mask, he [sic] shot him three times in the head and ran," reported the online reference source.

Now this smacks as something very, very odd. So now without the "drive" behind it, I wonder if this spells doom for Wiki?

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Perfect? Hardly. But it's certainly better than the "scholarship" of someone who bases his views of UFOs on Jeff Rense -- or his views of astronomy, biology, and geology solely on the Bible.

I thought that'd be unavoidable . It's my username, isn't it?

Wikipedia is garbage. Their information is either:

A)Unreliable (ie: false)

B)Biased on certain sensitive issues

C)Written by hacks (want reliable info? don't have random people surfing the internet write your encyclopaedia. I in fact wrote several Wikipedia pages for some kicks

Look Here for some more "dirt" on Jimmy.

The articles that are disputed in Wiki, have a little warning above them letting you know that it might be unreliable as an information source.

A recent study has shown that Wikipedia is as as accurate as Enyclopaedia Britannica:

www.cbc.ca...

What is realiable? Is anything reliable? How do you measure reliability?

Originally posted by Forgiven
What is realiable? Is anything reliable? How do you measure reliability?

With a reliabilitometer! Oh boy, I do love these topics. *wipes tear from eye*



[edit on 20-12-2005 by saint4God]

Wikipedia as reliable as the encyclopaedia Britannica ??! Are you completely nuts?! That's like saying Webster is better than the Oxford English language dictionary, or like saying Stormfront is a credible news agency. Wikipedia and Britannica in the same sentence **shivers** Do you even have a copy of Britannica?

[edit on 20-12-2005 by Nakash]

Originally posted by Nakash
Wikipedia as reliable as the encyclopaedia Britannica ??! Do you even have a copy of Britannica?

No, I don't, but then I'm not expressing this opinion, but rather posting the findings of a study reported in "Nature." Did you read my link?

www.cbc.ca...

You're not being very honest in your reasoning here. It's not because Wikipedia isn't 100% factual and verified in each and every bit of info it has that it has to be considered as an wholly unreliable source on ATS! This is a sophism. If there is something that you think is not correct or factual on a wiki page, then just verify your sources and then correct it, that's all.

Being not always editing information that is true and verified is what most mainstream news sites. newspapers and radio/TV stations do every single day, but still I never seen any ATS moderator such as you trashing down CNN or FOWnews for having misinformed millions of Americans for years over the real, factual existence of the Al Quaida terrorist network or the WMDs in Iraq.

Wikipedia is just as reliable as the people who contribute to it (and here that means everybody who makes the effort to) want it to be. But we could'nt say the same of Encyclopedia Britannica, since nobody outside of the elite circle of its editors and writers can question, criticize and improve the contents just as each and everyone of you are free to do with Wiki. This is the real advantage of something like Wikipedia over institutional, mainstream informational sources like the EB; this is DEMOCRATIC, as it leavesthe possibility for people to contribute to the information rather than just accepting it in a one-way direction as the "unquestionable truth". There is no place for propaganda imposed by the autority here.


[edit on 20/12/05 by Echtelion]

Wikipedia as reliable as the encyclopaedia Britannica ??! Are you completely nuts?!

now, now, I saw this story and posted something about it. Really, what the results of the test showed was that both Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Brittanica where on a par for accuracy when it came to science subjects that were examined by independant experts.

You can find a link to the Nature article and an audio interview on NPR in this thread.
abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread187041/pg1'

...and by the way that Register (which is, btw, a very, very mainstream and corporate-friendly news site) news page is a blatant anti-Wikipedia attack which not only points out some reliability problems, but also attacks all the concepts and philosphy behing Wiki as a whole. This is a very biased article that itself is not very reliable to be put in here on ATS.

I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a student writing a research paper.

Wow, that guy;s never met my teacher than, I wrote a research paper on cloning using only Wiki and another site about cloning as my only sources, and I got full points. A, 60/60.

Anyways, I consider Wiki a reliable source site, and I suppose to, this thread is two months old...

Etchtelion, that's BS Wikipedia does have a group of editors which censor content they disagree with. Also, I would not use an encyclopaedia which any random surfer writes. I wrote several wiki pages (edited a few as well for some kicks

Originally posted by iori_komei

[I wrote a research paper on cloning using only Wiki and another site about cloning as my only sources, and I got full points. A, 60/60.

In my day, even in high school, you had better not use an encyclopedia as a source, especially as the only source.

Wikipedia is a good quick source of information. Any such source needs to be taken with a grain of salt, not only because of false information, but because facts change more rapidly than an annually printed publication can keep up with.

[edit on 2005/12/20 by GradyPhilpott]