Do you find wikipedia useful? I've looked at it from time-to-time but on the couple of occasions when I've actually known the topic I've looked up it's been factually incorrect (sometimes grossly so). It makes me seriously doubt it's reliability when it's a topic I know absolutely nothing about.

Lately I've noticed several arguments along the lines of "Follow this link to wikipedia - it backs up what I say." and I rarely follow them, nor grant that endorsement as having much weight. Am I just an old man stuck in the twentieth century?

I have found it to be very good in basic physics and math concepts. Certainly would blow any printed encyclopedia out of the water. More controversial subjects (politics, religion) may not be as good.

Depends. It's full of bias and it has some holes, but this is true of any encyclopedia (something most don't realize). I believe Wikipedia is better than Brittanica for almost any article that appears in both encyclopedias, so I think by encyclopedia standards it's excellent.

Of course, it's especially unreliable where controversial issues are concerned. Furthermore, it has many more entries than a more "official" encyclopedia, and many of the obscure entries are horrible. Wikipedia is not a good source of information "off the beaten path" (most encyclopedias don't even contain information off the beaten path, so I let it slide).

There's almost no metric on which I'd rate Wikipedia worse than any other encyclopedia.

I've usually consulted Encyclopedia Britannica, but as you've
mentioned, there aren't just a few errors in Wikipedia, but
several. Not just that, there are many articles with the
caveat: "The neutrality of this article is disputed"!

You're right not to put much weight on Wikipedia, but it is a
free online resource. Britannica isn't free, but it's one of the
best encyclopedias to consult first. Then, it might be best
to look at the bibliography/references in EB first and then
the references in Wikipedia (which have a slant based on
the author of the article) and look at those books. I've
usually found the references in EB to be exceptional but for
one reason or another, they sometimes can change
substantially from one edition to the next. The articles in
EB can be difficult to wade through, but usually we don't
have to look through more than a fraction of one.

The great feature about Wikipedia is its scope: it has just
about everything important that is "technical", scientific or
mathematical (even though I've detected some errors even
in math articles). On the other hand, we'll have to wait and
see about other projects like Wikibooks, etc. to see how
these will develop.

Back in school I used wiki all the time!
It was my the easiest way to learn things fast and it never let me down.
<3 Wiki.

I didnt mean to ask "is it a good encyclopedia?" (I dont go to a more traditional encyclopedia for SMP kind of answers either - I'd rather go to something more specialised).

I more meant "is it a good way to answer a question/find out about a particular theory/etcetera?"

In that case, "good introduction" would be my answer. I don't think any encyclopedia is a reliable source, its value is in getting started, providing an overview, or corroborating/supporting other data.

If the question is introductory, and you know absolutely nothing about the subject, Wikipedia is usually fine.

The poll is a convincing rebuke. I am clearly an old man stuck in the 20th century.

whatever wikipedia says, its what the human conciousness believes.

so how is that not the truth?????

if this argument was a limit it would be:

as time approaches infinity, wikipedia approaches fact


believe it gang, wikipedia is gonna keep getting more info, more links, more databases, and much more credability

this website is a lock to be around and relavent longer than any other website except maybe google

More what a few people who are really passionate about the subject believe. Im always amazed people take the time. I post here, but its mostly because I want to be shown that what I believe that is wrong or to ask questions. I guess if I were a professor of some obscure subject I might edit the article though.

By encyclopedia standards it is good, and most likely by far the best encyclopedia you can find.

It is however biased and contains a lot of errors, encyclopedias tend to do. On political issues and directions it is extremely unreliable, due to the nature of how the articles are written.

You shouldn't trust it and for proper research you should always stick to solid peer reviewed books, articles other material and relevant databases, and it should never be used as actual material in good articles.

It can however serve as a good starting point to learn background information and pick up a couple of links on areas and issues.

Did you edit it?

I wouldnt know how to.

Here is how you edit a page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...to_edit_a_page

I look forward to you making it better so we can all benefit from it. That's how a collaboration works!

Agree. If you access some topic that can't include political spin, no problem. You will find wonderful straight facts, likely correct. But once the topic strays into anything political, you must assume a significant leftist spin. Examples are Venezuela, Radio talk hosts, the President, etc.

IMO wikipedia is an amazing resource for biology information, that's mainly what i've used it for and i can't say i've ever read anything that i disagreed with or later discovered was incorrect (in biology or anything else).

OP you should spend more time on wikipedia and just look around, you can be amazed at how much you can learn in just an hour.

From what I have seen of wikipedia is that the the more complicated and higher level a subject it is, the more it is accurate. Science, biology and history before 1950's seems to be very accurate because the only people who bother posting is because they actually know about the subject and it not something everyone knows about.

Another reason it is a very good source is that many articles are amazingly neutral and that you can get many different perspectives on the same subject. Also the amount of information on wikipedia is just incredible. It continues to grow at an extreme pace with the articles only getting longer and newer and newer articles. We are now at an age where almost every significant event is going to be written down in detail.

Also, for the more technical articles, obviously you need to be careful as it may not be obvious if there is a glaring error. Having said that, you would be surprised at the caliber of people who are editing alot of the newer technical articles. I know a few well known names in physics who edit articles anonymously.

Wikipedia can be quite addicting. I often go there for a specific reason, but then I click a link or two, and all of a sudden I've wasted three hours clicking through a weird series of links. For instance, I might start by reading an article about mathematician Paul Erdos, then Erdos Number, then Danica McKellar, then Fred Savage, then The Wizard, then Super Mario Bros. 3. Eventually I realize how silly it is that I'm reading about Super Mario Bros. 3. at 2 AM, but by then the damage is done :-P

There is an interesting game/study to determine the shortest amount of links to link any two topics on wiki. I had heard that any topic could eventually be linked to any other topic using no more then six links. I looked it up and here is what I found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...s_of_Wikipedia

See, now someone has to post the comic.

A lot of stuff is cited, so if you don't know and it's cited follow it to wherever it was cited from and you can see if it's legit information or not.

Wikinomics cited a study that suggested Wikipedia was about as accurate as Britannica. The nice thing about Wikipedia is the inaccuracies cited have all been fixed, and they are still there in Britannica.

+1

Wiki also displays disgusting bias on anything related to the environment, and more surprisingly, most of the articles I saw that related to the legal system in the U.S. When I was an adjunct professor of political science at my alma mater, I disallowed it as a source.

One of my hobbies is reading about the neolithic, and I have learned a lot from wiki there--lots of good, factual research.

On contemporary issues, though, I think you just have to acknowledge that wiki is monitored by liberals who want to convince the casual researcher (such as college students) that certain opinions are actually facts.

I find it pretty useful as a whole.

However, I tried to submit some helpful and accurate facts about the Armenian genocide and they were declined by the workers at Wikipedia, so they might be a bit biased on some subjects.