Wikipedia - "I made it up"

[JJM]

No that is their source. I was asking about the website itself.

And, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

 

[Solus]

A report in the Melbourne "Age" today about "one of the most prolific contributors and editors" to Wikipedia being not a professor in theology and law but an unqualified 24 year old. He contributed to 20,000 entries using such sources as "Catholicism for Dummies" to correct srticles.

Wikipedia is often used as a source in this forum. Perhaps now it should be treated cautiously - or not used at all!

This isn't new information, Wikipeida is useless as an academic source. It could only be used in a college research paper if you were writing about wikipedia and it's flaws, then you could cite it. Only a first year student would make such an error and use such a terrible source.

For a forum though, who gives a damn? The information is good enough for general information. A stronger argument does of course require better sources but I don't mind using wiki for minor things, such as famous people.

 

[Cuddles]

The Wiki is really peer review taken to totality. We share information, and it gets criticized, modified by our peers. Poorly supported information is weeded out, well supported information persists and enters our knowledge base.

Thus, the Wiki is a reliable source of knowledge over time, but we must be aware that any snapshot of it may contain worthless and even false information. Lacking a source of guaranteed true information, the Wiki is a very good substitute.

Hans

Wiki is in no way peer review. The important word in "peer review" (at least, one of the important words) is "peer".

peer-
noun
2. a person who is equal to another in abilities, qualifications, age, background, and social status.
3. something of equal worth or quality: a sky-scraper without peer.

A paper on quantum physics should be reviewed by other physicists, preferably of the quantum variety. Wiki allows absolutely anyone to review it, regardless of their knowledge, or lack of it, in the field.

 

[SirPhilip]

A paper on quantum physics should be reviewed by other physicists, preferably of the quantum variety. Wiki allows absolutely anyone to review it, regardless of their knowledge, or lack of it, in the field.

Even purple-bottomed particle-chasing wombles?

 

[pgwenthold]

Yes, a terrtiary or quaternary source for undergraduates, much like a good encyclopedia. What are you arguing about? If you have a casual interest in the value of a constant, an undergrad text is fine. If you need to be certain of the currently accepted value, you would be wise to find a more authoritative

If you are fine with using 96487 coulombs/mole, then a text book is fine. The Faraday is sufficiently known to that accuracy. If you need it more accurate than that, then you better go to a better source.

OTOH, who the heck needs to know the charge of an electron to better than 5 sig figs?

This is all begging the question of what is an "important" value to know. The Faraday to 4 decimal places is usually not important. Heck, most of the time you can get away with 3 sig figs. That's trivial.

 

[aggle-rithm]

But then again, Hans, peer reviews can easily be based on peer pressure, and telling your peers what they want to hear, such as happens in universities where peer pressure determines most subjects.

But true skeptics can slice through the bogus to find facts upon which to build foundations of truths, whereas the false skeptics only want what is fed to them and that is acceptable in their peer groups as as to remain groupies within the group and continue in their group faith.

Yeah, those professors and their good-time pals, laughing it up in their impenetrable cliques. I hate them so much!!!

 

[Diamond]

Many people contribute to Wikipedia and the overall effect appears to be that it is mostly accurate and a good place to go to get introduced to a new subject and, most importantly, find references to learn more.

It appears to be a successful experiment and my opinion of its usefullness hasn't changed.

You have absolutely no evidence for those statements. It is, in fact, a statement of faith not reason.

Meanwhile the evidence that Wikipedia is chock full of lies, distortions and propaganda continues to mount.

 

[UnrepentantSinner]

Wikiality.

 

[tsg]

Fine. We get it. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. We know that already.

I mean, really. The whole "Wikipedia sucks" thing is getting old. It seems some people have a bug up their rectums because Wikipedia isn't what they think it ought to be. News Flash: Wikipedia is under no obligation to meet your standards.

Or perhaps they think too many people trust it too much. People constantly believe things they should be skeptical of simply because they read it on the internet, read it in a newspaper or saw it on television. This isn't new and it isn't any different simply because it's Wikipedia.

Don't believe everything you read. Anywhere. Period. Can we move on now?

 

[Cuddles]

Fine. We get it. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. We know that already.

I mean, really. The whole "Wikipedia sucks" thing is getting old. It seems some people have a bug up their rectums because Wikipedia isn't what they think it ought to be. News Flash: Wikipedia is under no obligation to meet your standards.

Or perhaps they think too many people trust it too much. People constantly believe things they should be skeptical of simply because they read it on the internet, read it in a newspaper or saw it on television. This isn't new and it isn't any different simply because it's Wikipedia.

Don't believe everything you read. Anywhere. Period. Can we move on now?

I don't believe you.

 

[andyandy]

I don't believe you.

 

[tsg]

I don't believe you.

Yes you do.

There. It's on the internet so it must be true.

 

[Morrigan]

So you managed to find artiucles no one cares about. Do you enjoy lieing to people?

...Wow.
Luchog demonstrated that the claims about Wikipedia articles being corrected rapidly and having a self-correcting mechanism are false. He only "lied" in the sense that he experimented with the process to test the flaws in the system, the same way hoaxers who make crop circles "lie" to test public incredulity, or that James Randi and Carlos "lied" to the Australian public.

Your counter-argument is what... that it doesn't matter because nobody cares about the articles he edited (and you have no evidence of that either)? So allowing misinformation is okay if the articles are not especially popular subjects?

You amaze me.

 

[tsg]

...Wow.
Luchog demonstrated that the claims about Wikipedia articles being corrected rapidly and having a self-correcting mechanism are false.

I just went back through the thread and can't find any claim that all mistakes will be corrected rapidly. My recollection is that the mistakes, in general will be corrected, and finding one or two (or four or six) instances where that isn't the case doesn't prove that claim false.

Your counter-argument is what... that it doesn't matter because nobody cares about the articles he edited (and you have no evidence of that either)? So allowing misinformation is okay if the articles are not especially popular subjects?

I can't speak for geni, but I believe the point was that articles which aren't popular aren't going to get corrected as quickly. Again, the claim was not that all mistakes will be fixed, merely most of them. While I would like to see evidence of that claim before I trust it, finding a few instances where it does not happen doesn't invalidate the claim.

 

[Morrigan]

I just went back through the thread and can't find any claim that all mistakes will be corrected rapidly.

In this thread, no. But:

This was done in reaction to an argument with Geni shortly after the Nature article critiqueing Wikipedia was published.

 

[tsg]

In this thread, no. But:

Okay, but is someone claiming that all mistakes will be corrected rapidly? Because that's the only claim luchog's experiment disproves.

 

[geni]

This isn't new information, Wikipeida is useless as an academic source. It could only be used in a college research paper if you were writing about wikipedia and it's flaws,

No you could use it as a source when say writeing about fee content online.

then you could cite it. Only a first year student would make such an error and use such a terrible source.

So your legal system is staffed by people less competant than second year students? That would explain a lot. Could someone please explain to your judges why citeing wikipedia in a judgement is a really bad idea? Courts should really not be makeing mistakes like that.

 

[geni]

...Wow.
Luchog demonstrated that the claims about Wikipedia articles being corrected rapidly and having a self-correcting mechanism are false. He only "lied" in the sense that he experimented with the process to test the flaws in the system, the same way hoaxers who make crop circles "lie" to test public incredulity, or that James Randi and Carlos "lied" to the Australian public.

There is a reason you would have a hard time getting such a test past an ethics comittee

Your counter-argument is what... that it doesn't matter because nobody cares about the articles he edited (and you have no evidence of that either)? So allowing misinformation is okay if the articles are not especially popular subjects?

No they is why they have not been corrected. Errors in say [[Pokémon]] tend to get picked up faster.

You amaze me.

Given that such "tests" make a a noticable percentage of sneaky vandalism as tests they are not very good.

 

[luchog]

No they is why they have not been corrected. Errors in say [[Pokémon]] tend to get picked up faster.
(...)
Given that such "tests" make a a noticable percentage of sneaky vandalism as tests they are not very good.

Typical woo true-believer response. You were proven wrong, so you resort to dismissal and ad hominem.

The fact is, the articles are significant. I'll give you a hint, one of them is an important part of Japanese history. The other concerns an important part of one of the major peoples of the Ukraine. Obviously things no one cares about, unlike collectible card games.

If Wikipedia is so easily vandalized, and carries such errors for so long in articles that are scholarly, as opposed to pop culture and other meaningless fluff, that pretty much proves that point that Wikipedia is nowhere near as self-correcting and reliable a source for anything serious as you've been preaching for so long.

The long-running political feuds and the consistency of vandalism and unsupported claims in so many articles, political and otherwise, should have been enough proof of that, but you can't get a true believer to re-evaluate his beliefs I guess.

My experiment has proven my point. The Wikipedia experiment has failed miserably. Useful for fluff, not nearly reliable enough for serious scholarship.

 

[andyandy]

My experiment has proven my point. The Wikipedia experiment has failed miserably. Useful for fluff, not nearly reliable enough for serious scholarship.

i don't understand this obsession with "success" and "failure" - wiki serves a purpose, it is a positive addition to the web, and if it's used correctly then one can derrive benefit from using it. The very nature of the free editing is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. Why get hung up on concepts of "failure?"