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Wikipedia used for libel.

Sigh.

This is why I sternly lecture my supervisees not to use the Wikipedia for reference work, but to get off their butts and look in a book. Yes, yes, I know it's heresy to actually USE A BOOK once in a while, but we don't know what kind of fact checking goes on in a lot of these sites. I'll take the World Book over the Wikipedia any day.

I think this entire story proves one thing, aside from the fact that the Wikipedia experiment is not successful. And that is that John Siegenthaler is a gentleman.
 
LibraryLady said:
Sigh.

This is why I sternly lecture my supervisees not to use the Wikipedia for reference work, but to get off their butts and look in a book. Yes, yes, I know it's heresy to actually USE A BOOK once in a while, but we don't know what kind of fact checking goes on in a lot of these sites. I'll take the World Book over the Wikipedia any day.
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Books? They have this tendancy to be horibily outdated. I ran across one a few days ago that seemed to think that no one had made a Biaxial nematic liquid crystal. I mean come on they were reported in 2004.

I think this entire story proves one thing, aside from the fact that the Wikipedia experiment is not successful.
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Is isn't over yet. People have been writeing us off from day one. We just broke into the world's top 30 websites.
 
Roboramma said:
In theory anyway. I can still access the site sometimes though.
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Interesting. We've had reports of people getting through from Hong Kong but not from the rest of china.
 
geni said:
Is isn't over yet. People have been writeing us off from day one. We just broke into the world's top 30 websites.
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That might be true, but that does not imply quality, only popularity. However, let's see what transpires over the next few weeks.

For up to date information, a reliable Web site is great. For verified facts, give me that or a good book. But allowing anyone to enter any information...I just don't think it can be a reliable resource. Sorry.
 
LibraryLady said:
That might be true, but that does not imply quality, only popularity. However, let's see what transpires over the next few weeks.
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We've been pretty level at just below 30 for a while so I suspect that we will drop back down to that:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/t...arge&compare_sites=&y=t&url=www.wikipedia.org

Ultimately you are going to have to accept wikipedia. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Britanica is in a finacial mess. Encarta will continue as long as microsoft continues to fund it. All you can hope is that we end up with a good wikipedia. We've got various tricks availible ready to come on stream so things should get interesting again soon.

For up to date information, a reliable Web site is great. For verified facts, give me that or a good book. But allowing anyone to enter any information...I just don't think it can be a reliable resource. Sorry.
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For relable up to date facts I use journals. Pref electronic because I can search them faster. Books can provide some background info but not much more than that.
 
Melendwyr said:
Given that Wikipedia can be so easily edited, anyone who expects an unusual claim made on it to be necessarily true really is an idiot.
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I agree. So, other than for unimportant, informal work...what purpose does it serve?

I agree it is often good to get an overview of something. I read it all the time. But I read it for pleasure, not for serious work.
 
geni said:
Ultimately you are going to have to accept wikipedia. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Britanica is in a finacial mess. Encarta will continue as long as microsoft continues to fund it. All you can hope is that we end up with a good wikipedia. We've got various tricks availible ready to come on stream so things should get interesting again soon.



For relable up to date facts I use journals. Pref electronic because I can search them faster. Books can provide some background info but not much more than that.
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The problem with Wikipedia is not so much print vs electronic, but the fact that it isn't under editorial control. Errors can be introduced at any time: a page that was accurate yesterday may not be accurate today if it has been changed. Effectively it's an encyclopedia requiring a sceptical approach: while there's a lot of information there, you have to look at it carefully, and make sure you check anything critical against other sources.
 
geni said:
Interesting. We've had reports of people getting through from Hong Kong but not from the rest of china.
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I just tried again, and it I couldn't get on. Nevertheless, I'm certain I've accessed it from here as I didn't even know about wikipedia before I moved to China. But it very often doesn't work. I'm not sure, but it's possible that I've only been able to access the site through links that go to specific pages, rather than the main page, although I don't know if that would make any difference.

Anyway, I wish I could access it more consistently.
 
geni said:
Same set of laws apply. We been through this dosens of times on wikipedia in the last few days. The foundation is bullet proof at least as far as US lible law is concernded. Criminal and copyright is slightly more complex.

...snip..
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Is there a copy of the legal opinion they (you?) are using to make that statement?
 
Darat said:
Is there a link to those summaries?
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I am not going to search through the mailing list archives. Most of the content was bad enough the first time around.
 
geni said:
Ultimately you are going to have to accept wikipedia. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Britanica is in a finacial mess. Encarta will continue as long as microsoft continues to fund it. All you can hope is that we end up with a good wikipedia. We've got various tricks availible ready to come on stream so things should get interesting again soon.


For relable up to date facts I use journals. Pref electronic because I can search them faster. Books can provide some background info but not much more than that.
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Peer reviewed journals? With journals also you need to pick and choose.

Mojo says:

The problem with Wikipedia is not so much print vs electronic, but the fact that it isn't under editorial control. Errors can be introduced at any time: a page that was accurate yesterday may not be accurate today if it has been changed. Effectively it's an encyclopedia requiring a sceptical approach: while there's a lot of information there, you have to look at it carefully, and make sure you check anything critical against other sources.
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Exactly.

I see no reason why I *have* to accept anything that is not consistently accurate. Because something is up to date in the Weekly World News does not mean I can rely on it. Accurate information is my profession.
 
LibraryLady said:
Peer reviewed journals? With journals also you need to pick and choose.
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WOK includes the abilty to search by number of times a paper has been referenced. Generaly it is fairly easy to judge organic chemistry papers by what they say (mentions of HPLC are bad).


I see no reason why I *have* to accept anything that is not consistently accurate. Because something is up to date in the Weekly World News does not mean I can rely on it. Accurate information is my profession.
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You have to accept it becuase there is a fairly solid risk there will soon be nothing else (indeed in some languages there is already nothing else).

Britanica is in trouble

Encarta isn't exactly makeing microsoft a vast amount of money.

If the enclyopedia has a future at all it is increasingly look like that future is wikipedia or something like it (and realisticaly wikipedia has a massive headstart).
 
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