The opinion of Wikipedia as a reliable aid for research is many and varied, but I have noted one or two interesting aspects and just wondered what the general feeling was on this board.

The most interesting phenomenon (clearly I need to get out more) is that very often users on this board (a board populated to a large part by educated, intelligent people with experience of the scientific method and research in general) are pointed in the direction of Wikipedia when asking factual question about various things.

However, on some of the other boards dealing with less consequential matters, such as sports or TV shows, users are almost unanimous in their dislike for any referral to Wikipedia on the basis that "it is maintained by the users, so anyone can add information, therefore it is 100% unreliable".

Personally, I have seen little to no evidence on the subjects I do know plenty about to suggest widespread misinformation on Wikipedia, but clearly I go there to learn stuff I don't know rather than to check how accurate it is about stuff I do know.

So ... I am interested in some thoughts on how much stock people feel we can place in the information contained on Wikipedia, bearing in mind that any serious research would only ever use something like this as a jumping off point for more detailed, specialist study.

What do you think?

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Dave

Anyone seen my marbles? Anyone ... ?

Have you browsed for Wiki/Wikipedia references on this board?

There has been studys, and we have discussed both Wiki and the studys in some length.
So; to get you started, I did a quick search...
Is Wikipedia Failing?
The dangers of Wikipedia
Wikipedia - Why?

I think that first one is the one that stands out in my memory the most.

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Numbers are not case sensitive. (me)

The general opinion, as I can guage it (objectively, mind you), is that the wiki is a good place to start, and can be a handy quick refresher on a topic you're already familiar with, but is hardly authoritative, and shouldn't be the sum of one's research. Especially for someone new to a topic, one may be pointed there initially for a 'quick' understanding, but is expected to purse the subject matter beyond it, for the reasons you gave - it is freely editable, and there are demonstable instances of bad/questionable science/facts, and frequent vandalism.

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"I have this theory that the Apollo missions were faked when NASA found out that general relativity was wrong because the Earth was expanding due to the Sun's iron core being influenced by magnetic waves from the electric universe after being perturbed by Planet X and thereby causing global warming. Where should I start a thread about this?" ~ ToSeek

"Those are the people that wonder how a thermos knows whether to keep something hot or keep something cold." ~ NeoWatcher

Yes, that's how I would paraphrase the overall impression aswell; at least, that's certianly how I feel about it.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Definately agree. Also subject matter can affect quality of the entry. Example, a discussion on star formation is a lot less emotive than say the history of the Zionist movement

Wiki's user edited reputation is deserved, but as more and more people, particularly the experts in a field, have taken ownership of various topics, it's become much more difficult to vandalize in a way that lasts more than a couple hours. Disputes are handled fairly well, and in heated disputes, pages are reverted to a known good version and locked until the dispute can be resolved.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol. A human.

Whoever says "perception is reality" is daft. It's merely an abstraction, and often not a very good one.

Another possible factor is that pages on popular topics like sports and TV pages get more visitors from the general population, and therefore more likely to get bad edits, as compared to "boring" subjects like science and astronomy, where the knowledgeable probably comprise a higher proportion of the visitors.

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"It's over you head now. Time to get some professional help." - My fortune cookie from lunch

Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial

Usenet Physics FAQ

Always use backup sources. And for mainstream things like "History of Australia", use Encarta or some such thing. If you want to know something estoric, like why movie telephone numbers always start with 555, that's when you call in Why-Kee-Pee-Dee-Ah.

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"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"Carl Sagan sent a message to ET,
Neil Armstrong walked in the Sea of Tranquility
Steve Squyers built Spirit and Opportunity
Dan Haylen upchucked in zero gravity." -Brent Simon, The Space Camp Song

Thanks for your responses ... pretty much accords with what I thought.

Thanks also for the links to previous threads. For some reason the board server was playing silly buggers with me yesterday, allowing me to navigate and make new posts but hanging whenever I tried to edit (hence the grammatical ineptitude that remains in the OP) or make a search.

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Dave

Anyone seen my marbles? Anyone ... ?

What Wikipedia in particular and the net in general are fantastic for are reverse dictionary work. When I'm writing I often hit a glitch because I don't know or can't remember a particular word. In the past this meant just skipping over or pausing to try to look something up, with the possible loss of a train of thought.

A while back I was writing a scene and couldn't for the life of me remember the name for the piece of medieval armor that covers the leg. Total blank. I just called up Google, typed 'knight+armor+parts' and had 'greave' in about twenty seconds.

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The Devil offered me power. I told him I preferred aperture.

It's a fairly well-understood problem. We're not sure why the board wants to hang there sometimes, but when editing or quick-posting, you need only hit the "go advanced" button, then submit from there.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Agreed. I had writers' block back in the 90s because I was worried about my lack of general knowledge and didn't know how to do research. Now, Wiki makes research as easy as falling off a bike. Also, strict accuracy is not so important if you're writing fiction - it is generally enough to know what everybody else knows, even if everyone is wrong! (Example - in one of the Hitch Hiker books, Adams waxes lyrically about the implications of Eskimos having loads of different words for snow. As it turns out, it's untrue - Eskimos do not have loads of different words for snow - but at the time everybody thought they did, and it's a very funny piece of writing.)

Another thing about Wiki is that it's up to date. A scholarly work on astronomy might be sent off to the printers on the very day that they decide Pluto is not a planet, and it's inaccurate before it's even published.

Furthermore, whereas anybody can write anything on Wiki, as others have pointed out, there are editors. If somebody wrote, "The Loch Ness Monster is now known to be a radio-controlled inflatable robot operated by bored double-glazing salesmen from Fort William," the entry is going to get a "citation needed" at the very least.

Wikipedia is quite good for a quick explanation of a term, and is used quite a lot for that.

I think another reason why people are less shy about using wikipedia references here is that our users in general can be expected to be knowlegable about critical reading and source checking.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

...and for ID'ing those "anyones":

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I agree with everything said above. As an avid Wikipedian who feels that the only way to beat it is to join it, I can vouch for the quality of my own articles.

Anyway, I know we're not supposed to discuss politics, but I just had to post this hilarious edit just removed from Wikipedia's article on Titan:

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Wikipedia: A MMORPG for self-denialists.

It's gotten to the point where careful investigation is needed just to tell parody from reality. I think that means reality is broken.- Noclevername.

Each article has to be judged on its own. Some explain a subject excellently, others poorly, and some contain outright misinformation.

I'd recommend that you always read the article before linking to it; I know I've neglected to do this myself, and would up having to use the head-smacking "D'oh!" emoticon when it turned out I was contradicted by the article I'd offered as evidence that I was right.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Sometimes, there just isn't an article on the subject I'm trying to research. I watched a docudrama the other day on a British poisoner named Major Herbert Armstrong, so to check some of the information in it preparatory to writing a review of it, I searched Wikipedia for "Herbert Armstrong." There was one entry, and it was for a very different Herbert Armstrong. (This one founded a church and university back home in Pasadena; the concert hall there is very highly accorded, and I've played there a few times myself.)

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

This guy?

Hanged by John Ellis who wrote "Diary of a Hangman" about his 23 years as executioner.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.