A lot of people like Wikipedia. And why not? It's an easy web site to access navigate, and no matter how strange or obscure something is you can find an article about it.
So why doesn't every person like this web site?
This was the paraphrasing I used to begin this blog originally; changed somewhat slightly, but with the same overall concept.
My answer to this questions was because at Wikipedia, I could write an article on Bio-Engineering and it will be believed; and someone would reference this article for a paper they're writing on Bio-Engineering. Do you think I know anything about Bio-Engineering?
It's not often that I will revise my opinion; I'm not pig-headed or a complete snob or anything like that. But I do (usually) put enough time into formulating my opinions that I have come to trust them. I rarely hear any new information once my opinion is formed.
But it's nice to know that it happens :)
So, after a brief(ish) conversation last night, my opinion on Wicked-pedia has changed slightly.
Wikipedia a very nice idea. I still believe that more needs to be done to deter people from using it as an only reference, but as a friend pointed out, allowing people this much information to be easily accessible is a wonderful things, and the misinformation that is there will eventually begin to die off.
I will still not accept Wikipedia as a sole reference, but I will try to curb my elitist-wannabe ways to accept it as part of a list of references.
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Yeah, I remember trying to write a paper last year about the Holocaust, and I referenced Wikipedia to give me ideas about what to look for. I looked for the exact quote of something Wikipedia said, and it appeared on no sites other than message boards. Seems it was a rumor, with no academic backing.
Still, wikipedia is pretty good about having information about chemical compounds (their molecular weight, density, boiling point, etc). Helped me get through Organic lab, anyway.
~C
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Most of my professors won't let us use Wikipedia. The only thing I've found it's really good for is definitions and a place to start looking for sources (by checking out the sources referenced in the article... if there are any).
If you do use Wikipedia, double and triple check with other sources before posting it as fact!
"It is never too late to give up your prejudices." Henry David Thoreau
"In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you've heard the other side." Euripides
damn it! wikipedia told me you were the most qualified source on bio-engineering. now i don't know who to trust...
good thing i'm an art student. bio-engineering is for schmucks. =P
--stacie
LMAO!
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
Fanaile Essence,
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...the best use for Wikipedia is as a research guide. Aside from the (really rather rare) instances where controversial articles get rewritten daily by biased partisans until the wikipeople get pissed and lock down the edit option, wikipedia has always proved useful to me as a general overview of most topics. I would suggest that you never rely on wikipedia as your sole source of information, but when you keep its credibility in perspective it can be very useful.
percivale
-------------------------
"Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici." ~ V.
That is soo true - All you need to do is state something on wikipedia and have people believe it than it becomes a fact, just what Stephen Colbert said
"Courage is resistance to fear, Mastery of fear - not absence of fear" -Mark Twain.
Actually, Stephen Colbert said that the number of African elephants had tripled in the last decade. It's completely true!
Also, there is a great website out there somewhere whose sole purpose is to solve all the problems with Wikipedia by making it so that users will only falsify one article: the one about Chickens.
Nicholas Aden
That would be a travesty!! If we don't get organized quick, they will take over. People must know the truth about chickens.
--Mike
Check out the ProgU News Feed:
http://www.progressiveu.org/news
http://www.everytopicintheuniverseexceptchickens.com/
Nicholas Aden
Weren't the people to come up with Macro Evolution philosophers in the first place? We're everywhere!!!
--Mike
Check out the ProgU News Feed:
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I like to use Wikipedia to find resources... like the links and sources that the people use who write the articles. It saves time so I'm not spending forever on Google. Of course, I like to use a variety of sources, I prefer to use books just because there is a lot of information on one subject in one place.
i used to use wikipedia as just reading material, to get me familiar with a topic or to refresh myself with a historical event or something like that. I then discovered that some words in a wikipedia article were altered and changed. From then on, I have to be careful with what I read. I understand that wikipedia isn't a reliable source of information, but I do think that it is a helpful source to get a general sense of an unknown topic
=)
Why Fanaile, such harsh words said against my dear, dear Friend, Wikipedia. And to think that I clicked on this because I thought 'wicked' was meant in the congratulatory, punny sense.
Please realize that the same openness and transparency which appears to give Wikipedia its blemishes----also gives rise to its greatest qualities. While freedom will mean /rare/ vandalism and inauthenticity----this same freedom means that experts and credible resources will be rewarded, and that truth will persist, and that low-quality information or mis-information will be surpassed by truth and quality.
Mistrust of this process and the information it produces smacks of elitism. Trust what the freedom of millions of empowered individuals can do.
It is so much more than a nice idea. Making so much information SO readily available is nothing short of a glorious, beautiful idea. Making that content attached to users' history, changeable, making it transparent--naturally encourages the best rise to the top.
Also please realize that studies of Wikipedia's factual accuracy have revealed that its authenticity rivals and meets that of its commercial counterparts. That's the second link at the bottom.
finally, one qualifier. I don't think anyone rates Wikipedia as the final word on the nuances and technical insides of any deep field. For that, there are external links and books--and this is mostly why professors will ask that you not cite Wikipedia. But for conclusions and an introduction--for information of an /encyclopedic nature/, that is, accessible and general-audience yet penetrating enough--it's indescribably wonderful.
Michael Allen Yarbrough (PBUH)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#Comparative_studie...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#_ref-6
:) If not for the abuse, I would agree.
And I do agree that the site has gotten better over time. I sometimes wonder how much of that is attributed to the bad publicity of blogs such as this one, and of the growing number of colleges and universities who will not accept Wikipedia as a resource or reference for research.
Perhaps the powers that be there are trying valiantly to overcome and rise above this reputation...only time will tell.
But, I wish I could agree with you that most people do not use Wikipedia as their one and only resource. I have seen it countless times, even on this site, where it was the one and only referenced material with no mention of checking the credibility. Granted, that doesn't mean that the people don't ever check the credibility of the site's articles; but shouldn't they then post those other sites as references?
My University will not accept it at all. For many classes, we get divided into groups and have to turn in "Learning Team Assignments" (which suck if you're the only one doing most of the work) that sometimes count for almost half of your grade. In one class (Organizational Ethics) we had a paper cowritten by "Five" of us (I use quotations because, really, it was only two of us, but we had to include the other three names or lose points on the grade) and one out of 25 references were a Wikipedia page; we received a zero for that alone. Other colleges are following suit; this tells me something.
This is also not to say that Wikipedia doesn't have great potential, or even that it doesn't give some benefit (such as a rough estimate, brief summary, and etc.), but the majority of people I know would use it as an end-all-be-all reference point if they could get away with it in college.
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
Fanaile Essence,
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"I sometimes wonder how much of that is attributed to the bad publicity of blogs such as this one, and of the growing number of colleges and universities who will not accept Wikipedia as a resource or reference for research."
Another dubious suggestion, a nice pat on your back. sorry, I just like the word dubious today. You could poll regular Inkers and ask them to what degree their motivation is criticism of Wikipedia. I doubt it's what you suggest. typical.
"was the one and only referenced material with no mention of checking the credibility."
Unfortunate; we agree that we wish people would not rely on it totally. Note however, that if the content referenced also operated like a wiki, its errors would also change.
"My University will not accept it at all."
That speaks of your University and your professor, then, not of Wikipedia. If yours was a judicious reference, and it was something somewhat commonly known and not, say, THE cornerstone of your paper's argument, then I would be fine with the citation--especially in what sounds like a somewhat minor assignment (when are serious assignments ever group ones with little accountability?). to make that act drop your grade for the course a 50 at best is infuriating, an outrage.
It does have huge potential---even beyond the great feats it's already achieved.
Michael Allen Yarbrough (PBUH)
Ugh, and I was pissed... It took me forever to win that part of my grade back (especially when I wasn't the one who referenced it, I should have proofread the other student's contribution more carefully).
But, I did get the grade back, only after I was able to show my logs (I'm uber-anal, I log just about everything) and a printout of my computer history (which wasn't easy, but I had a friend help me do that) and my original portion of the assignment as well as the original portion that was handed to me by the other student so I could compile them into one paper.
LOL, I'm getting mad about it again by just thinking about those two months (!) of arguing with my professor and the Dean over this one assignment!
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
Fanaile Essence,
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When I went to hit post my edited reply, I got logged out, logged back in, but can't access the edits I made, nor does the 'edit comment' link appear. WTF???? I'll try to reproduce the changes I made, and delete and such later. Please re-read, as my attitude is different, and so might be your reply:
Why Fanaile, such harsh words said against my dear, dear Friend, Wikipedia. And to think that I clicked on this because I thought you intended 'wicked' in the congratulatory, punny sense.
I wonder why you ask the rhetorical question "why don't more colleges, or people, like Wikipedia?"---as if many people don't. This is a dubious and misleading suggestion, my friend, because Wikipedia is the TENTH MOST POPULAR WEBSITE according to the Alexa Ratings. Is there a reason I should not think you're being dishonest? Why does it appear that you mistrust Wikipedia so much?
Please realize that studies of Wikipedia's factual accuracy have revealed that its authenticity rivals and meets that of its commercial counterparts. That's the second link at the bottom.
Also please realize that the same openness and transparency which appears to give Wikipedia its blemishes----also gives rise to its greatest qualities. While freedom will mean /rare/ vandalism and inauthenticity----this same freedom means that experts and credible resources will change it and be rewarded, and that truth will persist, and that low-quality content or mis-information will be surpassed by truth and quality.
Mistrust of this process and the information it produces smacks of elitism. Trust what the freedom of millions of empowered individuals can do.
It is so much more than a nice idea. Making so much information SO readily available is nothing short of a glorious, beautiful idea. Making that content attached to users' history, changeable, making it transparent--naturally encourages the best rise to the top.
finally, one qualifier. I don't think anyone rates Wikipedia as the final word on the deepest nuances and technical insides of any field. For that, there are external links and books--and this is mostly why professors will ask that you not cite Wikipedia. But for conclusions and an introduction--for information of an /encyclopedic nature/, that is, accessible and general-audience yet penetrating enough--it's indescribably wonderful, unassailable. I cannot imagine why anyone could level such an attitude against Wikipedia, especially considering all the enlightenment it has brought millions, empowering those who know to efficiently radiate information to those who don't.
Michael Allen Yarbrough (PBUH)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essjay_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#Comparative_studie...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia#_ref-6
Michael Allen Yarbrough (PBUH)
Not sure why you got logged out, but a normal user can't go back and edit a comment once someone has replied - so it's probably my fault for replying to you why you couldn't make the changes you wanted to...
You did point out one mistake (of what I'm sure are many) that I made in my haste - the line you quoted should have read "appear to like Wikipedia" - I've gone back to change this to reflect such. My thoughts regarding that were that every college I have had exposure to has some sort of pamphlet/brochure/academic policy outlining that Wikipedia is not a good reference cite and is unacceptable... and because of this many of the students I know from various colleges look down on Wikipedia as a poor source of information.
I did not mean to imply that no one likes it, by any means, just that the majority of people that I know or have met do not.
Why does it appear that you mistrust Wikipedia so much? Perhaps I have bad luck, it's possible, but I have never (not once) found an accurate article when searching for something on Wikipedia. Not that I'm an expert and just "knew" that they were inaccurate - but even checking the very references listed on the articles on Wikipedia, the information I was led to completely contradicted the information on the site.
It could be a very weird coincidence; or it could be the anti-Fanaile site that I've heard so much about... who knows :)
Additionally, tags and keywords always seem to get mixed up. I did a search on Wikipedia the day I wrote this blog. My search was for "Chaos Theory" because an acquaintance of mine was trying to tell me that his brother was the man who developed this theory and I didn't believe him. I found, instead, 10 articles about a character named "chaos" in the game "Xenosaga" (which I read because I love that game, but, not the point). Although, that's no reason to distrust a site - that's more inconvenience than incompetence...
And sadly, I never found the information I was looking for on Chaos Theory from Wikipedia - I had to go through another site (ProQuest Database, my favorite) bitching the entire time that I had wasted so much time reading about a character on a game because I should have gone to my favorite in the first place... :)
Trust what the freedom of millions of empowered individuals can do. Well, I don't know how to even comment on this, LOL. My first thought, honestly, was that people tend to fall under mob-thinking when left unchecked. So I guess this would really depend on what is "empowering" these millions of free people?
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
Fanaile Essence,
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"the majority of people that I know or have met do not."
Jesus Christ, then, who are you hanging out with? Everyone who matters knows that anyone who matters loves wikipedia.
Hopefully it was indeed only bad luck.
When I typed 'Chaos Theory' into my wikipedia toolbar in Firefox, I got the page that describes the physical theory. Does your example accurately reflect your experience with wikipedia?
I'm not sure how to interpret your final remark either. The empowerment I refer to is this change: before--information was only tranferred in an extremely inefficient and diffuse manner--here I'm trying and not succeeding in describing the obstacles that come with the diffuse nature of information---but in any case the time costs are significant. Wikipedia's high visibility, its centrality, accessibility, transparency---eliminated so many of those costs, and enabled credible information to efficiently become visible, whereas before it would have languished in a person's mind, or on some lonely webpage, or on many many scattered, unlinked pages. The empowerment I refer to is this enabling of these credentials to compete in an open environment--and encouraging competence and expertise to succeed as it should.
And No, emphatically No, when individuals are left unchecked, 'mob thinking,' whatever the bleeding hell that is, does not prevail. This distinction is probably more fundamental than can be discussed here, and probably deserves a phrase like one's 'vision of man's nature', and probably means the difference between one's being a tyrant or a true liberal--if freedom means mob thinking, then people must be controlled, non? Is that how the theory goes?
I must comment on whatever hostility I exude here. You appear to have touched a nerve by ragging on my best friend, especially in our libertine environment where I thought freedom and competence were admired and trusted.
Michael Allen Yarbrough (PBUH)
thanks for telling me what's up with the post-hoc commenting. Hopefully, ProgU will be good enough so that I don't feel the need to hit Ctrl+A+C every time before I hit 'post'
Hmm, who do I hang out with, LOL. Admittedly (and it pains me to say this) most of them are elitist snobs (so I guess I just proved your entire point, LOL). I am (and always was) one of those little nerds that runs through the halls carrying a library of books with me, then running home and rushing through my homework so I could get in a good game of Dungeons and Dragons with my friends (an odd collection of nerds, wonks, and self-proclaimed "experts" in various fields).
I swear I am telling the entire truth about my latest experience on Wikipedia regarding Chaos Theory - even though I feel like a complete liar and absolutely horrible because I just went there again and checked (I use Internet Explorer) and it came up. ::sigh:: the site hates me, I swear, LOL.
With your clarification on empowerment, I agree...
By "mob-think" I mean that many (if not most) individucals tend to follow a crowd. Speed limit signs become obsolete once a couple of people begin speeding, the rest of the drivers (but us few) will watch as the majority of the crowd speeds up to "go with the flow". So much so that now you can get a ticket for going the speed limit if the majority of drivers on the road are speeding by more than 10 mph. Ever sat at a red light that refused to change? The law here states that if a red light, for whatever reason, does not change, you have to sit and wait for at least 3 minutes at the light, in front of the line, then if no traffic is coming, you may run the red light and allow the line to move up. This means that if a light is refusing to change, and there is a car in front of you and they run the red light, you still have to sit and wait another 3 minutes before you can go. Does that ever happen? Most people won't wait the three minutes; and once people see that first car go, the majority of people will follow suit, disregarding their own waiting requirement. (One guy honked at me the other day for not just following the car in front of me, and sitting there for the entire three minutes-I waited another full minute just because I hate it when people honk and show me their middle finger for following the law).
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
Fanaile Essence,
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Haha, all my friends (yeah, all two of them, MAYBE) are probably big nerds and if not pretentious, at least know how smart they are. I'm not old enough, however, to have been born into the D+D generation. I'm a sophomore (in college).
Firefox is pretty much in all ways better than Explorer. sorry. runs faster. blocks pop-ups. alt-click to open links in new tabs. keyboard shortcuts. bookmarks. customizable. etc. I tried IE 6 and it worked. if you're using some toolbar that gets onto your computer via spyware, yeah....those can be pretty dubious. perhaps 'dubious' will overtake 'sketchy' in our common parlance. just say it. it locomotes and tumbles off the tongue. dubious. haha.
I must say, your examples don't appear to be very accurate proxies for determining man's nature. I wasn't suggesting that we go into such a debate but
, why not.
Speed limit signs can sometimes have a limit unsuitable for road conditions--they're just wrong and need to be replaced. It's easier to write a ticket for obstructing traffic until the sign is replaced--rather than expect them all to follow the inaccurate, (possibly dangerously slow) sign. I would argue that this disregard for the law reveals individual judgment of the proper speed limit, and that your humility before it is a reliance on the hive mind. Likewise for the long light. Maybe it's just me, but traffic law only frustrates me.
I may comment more later, because I have to go NOW.
Michael Allen Yarbrough (PBUH)
Every one keeps telling me to go to Firefox, but it doesn't work for me. It freezes or stops responding every two minutes and then after 30 minutes it will completely lock up. Everyone keeps telling me how much better and faster it is, but I can't get it to work to save my life. I don't think it likes my firewall...
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"Dream as though you'll live forever, but live as though there's no tomorrow" --James Dean
Fanaile Essence,
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