Do you all believe Wikipedia?

1. 61

   Hui (蕙)posted 13 years ago

   Do you all believe Wikipedia?

   replyreport
2. 89

   Pamela N Redposted 13 years ago

   No. Wikipedia can be changed by anyone. There was a situation a while back where a famous person's information was wrong on Wikipedia and two newspapers printed his obituary wrong.
   
   I also read that Wikipedia was changing information to coincide with statements made by Sarah Palin in an interview which were clearly wrong.
   
   Reputable schools and colleges will not take Wikipedia as reference material and we should all double check anything we read there.

   replyreport
3. 60

   Shuting Starposted 13 years ago

   No,though it has lots of valuable information but it cannot be considered a reliable source.Anyone can edit its content so one can expect a few errors and misleading facts.

   replyreport
4. 0

   ChuckGposted 13 years ago

   Wiki is good to get some quick short facts. However, if writing an article, get your facts from websites that end in .org or .edu. Got to websites that specialize in that field. That's your best bet when researching for articles. Wiki is more like a cliff note package of true/false facts.

   replyreport
5. 60

   THEHuG5posted 13 years ago

   Wikipedia is good if you're just looking for general info and you don't really care if it's exactly accurate or not. It is a good starting place for research papers because of the sources always listed at the bottom. At least some of those sources are usually reliable.

   replyreport
6. 60

   BfoBarneyposted 13 years ago

   A tricky topic this is!
   
   I for one have used Wikipedia as a guide, not a source! It is very rare that you find any pages that have been tampered with for some kids amusement. Although I can't stress enough, never tell your teachers or lectures that you used Wikipedia, just don't even mention it's name!

   replyreport
7. 68

   samanthamayerposted 13 years ago

   I really only use Wikipedia for trivial things. For example, if there's an actor in a movie who I know I've seen before but I can't quite pinpoint where... Those kinds of facts are pretty simple and not so easy to be tampered with. Otherwise, if I'm looking for more meaningful info, I find that Wikipedia can be a little erratic in what it provides and a headache to read. A good Google search often reaps much better results.

   replyreport
8. 59

   GoldenBirdposted 13 years ago

   Wikipedia is like what a stick is to a blind person. Dogs are better if you want to cross the road.

   replyreport
9. 60

   FatFreddysCatposted 13 years ago

   Wikipedia can have its uses, however it shouldn't be someone's sole research source.
   
   Though honestly, if you read enough articles on Wiki, eventually you will be able to tell which ones have been "edited"/tampered with to include wrong info

   replyreport
10. 72

    lburmasterposted 13 years ago

    Hahahaha! No. Wikipedia is known for letting almost anyone to write on their pages. I can go on there and add a word that does not exist, then I can write about it as if it does exist and write down anything I want to put this word into. I can also go onto other words or people's stories and write anything I desire to. It is not reliable AT ALL.

    replyreport
11. 82

    Millionaire Tipsposted 13 years ago

    I like Wikipedia, but like any source, there is a possibility of incorrect or misleading information.  I try to find  many different sources  so I can properly analyze the facts and make my own decisions about what to believe.

    replyreport
12. 0

    Old Empresarioposted 13 years ago

    It's not useless. Wikipedia really just cuts to the bone to give you the "rinsed-down" gist of some topic. Once you get the big picture view to help you understand, you can begin your proper research with multiple sources. I have made corrections on Wikipedia before, but they were relatively minor. But then again, I have read commercially-published secondary source historical non-fiction by reputable businessmen, historians, or even professors from Columbia University or Harvard and found many mistakes where they got many facts wrong, including dates and years of historical events! That's hard to believe, but these guys are clearly not edited thoroughly. Wikipedia is good for peaking your initial interest and giving you a general understanding of a topic to be taken with a grain of salt. Commercial secondary sources are good for giving you multiple perspectives--or in some case, the mainstream perspective on a topic. Periodicals are good for showing what the ordinary people knew or know, while also giving various mainstream perspectives. Professional, scholarly secondary-source publications, which are rarely found in book stores, tend to focus more thoroughly on the particulars of a subject. They are often a bit more factual and scientific than the commercial publications. Finally, you have the primary sources--excluding periodicals. These are the least accessible, yet most interesting of all. The only thing that can be considered 100% accurate on them are the dates.

    replyreport
13. 60

    sprobinposted 13 years ago

    Wikipedia, is really good. But i can't believe all of this . because any one can change this.

    replyreport
14. 61

    paoloumaliposted 13 years ago

    I guess Wikipedia is meant to be read not to be believed.
    
    I think it will be wrong to ask 'Do you believe Britannica?'.
    
    Encyclopedia articles are into describing things and not on convincing people. If a listing is wrong, then it can be corrected by the community.
    
    Take for example:
    
    There is a Chief Justice(head of the highest court) in the Philippines who will undergo Impeachment trial in the Philippines this month. Some haters went to his Wikipedia page and replaced his title to  'Thief Justice'.
    
    Well, if you go back, you will see it's corrected.
    
    The good thing about Wiki, it is easy to correct things in a timely fashion.

    replyreport
15. 75

    Capediumposted 13 years ago

    Wikipedia can be changed by anyone, I can not argue that fact.
    But we can't deny the fact that it has useful information that we need
    So I guess is Yes and No..
    That's why we are humans we listen, learn and make our own
    conclusion

    replyreport