Wikipedia

[imamartian]

I love Wikipedia.... it's my bible for just about anything i want to find out.. But in the past i've heard people make comments like "Wikipedia is sh!te, mistakes everywhere"!!! are these people correct? do any of you know of any innaccuracies on Wikipedia?

 

[Alarm]

The trouble with it is any can add and there lies the issue.
So there are sometimes glaring errors there. They try to correct, but its the WWW, so its a difficult thing to watch.

 

[imamartian]

What sort of errors? i mean if someone said for example Margaret T was born in 1924.. would i matter? whereas is Wikipedia said our Sun had 14 planets.... then that would matter wouldn't it?

Compared to the massive amount of info you can get, the odd innaccuracy is acceptable isn't it?

 

[Alarm]

Not really as then the info becomes useless.
quotes have been added to people incorrectly.
Other items like this then make the info as stated useless. My sons use it sometimes and it could jepodise their course work if wrong.

See the point?

 

[EFCLee1]

I have never been on a WIKI page already knowing what am reading and spotting a mistake

Can someone post a link to a WIKI page that clearly has an error?

 

[imamartian]

but by what measure? Where do you get the 'actual' facts from? What year was Thatcher born? How many planets actually revolve around the Sun?

What i'm saying is... isn't Wiipedia a great place for gathering 99% of all the world's accurate facts? there's nothing to compete is there?

 

[Alarm]

Sorry I cannot give a link to one as the ones I/my sons used have been corrected.
However it is common knowledge that Wiki have to amend dozens of pages for innacurate items.

And the best is a book, rather series of biiks and now a web site
http://www.britannica.co.uk/

 

[imamartian]

you said it yourself... "they've been corrected"!!! that's the whole point of a wiki...

And agreed, Britannica is probably great... except it is NOT FREE !!!!!

get my point???

 

[alumni]

What sort of errors? i mean if someone said for example Margaret T was born in 1924.. would i matter? whereas is Wikipedia said our Sun had 14 planets.... then that would matter wouldn't it?

Compared to the massive amount of info you can get, the odd innaccuracy is acceptable isn't it?

The problem is people believe it to be absolute fact without checking alternative sources. Easy to just refer to 'wiki'. It knows everything and it must be true because, well, why would it not be?

We all use it and especially so on subjects we know little about -and ther's the catch. We don't know the subject so how do we know it's correct, or not as the case may be.

In general, most of it is correct, but it does have errors and continual entries of 'misinformation'. Difficulty is knowing which.

 

[imamartian]

What sort of errors? i mean if someone said for example Margaret T was born in 1924.. would i matter? whereas is Wikipedia said our Sun had 14 planets.... then that would matter wouldn't it?

Compared to the massive amount of info you can get, the odd innaccuracy is acceptable isn't it?

The problem is people believe it to be absolute fact without checking alternative sources. Easy to just refer to 'wiki'. It knows everything and it must be true because, well, why would it not be?

We all use it and especially so on subjects we know little about -and ther's the catch. We don't know the subject so how do we know it's correct, or not as the case may be.

In general, most of it is correct, but it does have errors and continual entries of 'misinformation'. Difficulty is knowing which.

yeah but you just reinforced what i said !! so i suspect the OED has errors in? and Britannica? must have errors in mustn't it? and then there's proving the truth... if i asked you when Thatcher was born, how would you find out definitivley?

 

[EFCLee1]

I think IMDB is also a fantastic website which I go on several times a week

 

[imamartian]

I think IMDB is also a fantastic website which I go on several times a week

but that's specific to a particular hobby, and how do you know how accurate it is?

 

[EFCLee1]

I have never double checked all of its information on other websites, like WIKI you take it for granted that its correct otherwise for everything you read your googling another website to check if it true, and that sounds anal

 

[imamartian]

agreed....so either you trust a society, or a department, or a trust, or a committee? whereas with Wikipedia you trust a self levelling community. Surely in the scheme of things that has to be good enough doesn't it? especially when most of the Wikipedia info will probably come from other websites like you lot mention anyway?!!!

 

[Alarm]

The problem with Wikki is anyone can alter the info and there is no creditability attached.