Idiotic Quote of the Day

ShinseiTom said:
Who the heck cites the wiki when researching stuff? Of course that's asking for trouble.
Just follow the links to the sources of the page's info, and go from there. It's incredibly easy to use the Wikipedia as a research search engine, it cuts down on time spent finding material greatly, and is easy to get to for pretty much everyone.
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+1

I use Wikipedia as an index to cited sources. I never use information *directly* from Wikipedia that requires absolute accuracy.
 
If its good enough for national news casters to cite from, its good enough for me! ;)
 
How stupid are some people, you go to wikipedia, and follow the citation links at the bottom to the actual source, etc. I use it for looking up various things but if it's actually serious i follow the citation, i'm pretty sure the superhero pages are fine but if it's relating to say cholesterol in diet i follow the links to the actual study on NCBI.

Don't directly cite wikipedia though, durrrrrrp.
 
SomeoneElse said:
Whats idiotic about it is that Wikipedia is not a creditable source. Yes the argument of fact checker is there but this site can be updated by anyone at anytime. I don't know about you guys but the professors i had would laugh at me and fail me for using wiki for a cited source.
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Agreed. The veracity of any given Wiki page is dependent upon the size of its readership and the "importance" of the page to its readership (warranting its update including references). Don't get me wrong, I hope SOPA et. al. dies... but there isn't anything "idiotic" about disparaging a student researcher for referencing Wikipedia. just my 2cents.
 
jrodez said:
Agreed. The veracity of any given Wiki page is dependent upon the size of its readership and the "importance" of the page to its readership (warranting its update including references). Don't get me wrong, I hope SOPA et. al. dies... but there isn't anything "idiotic" about disparaging a student researcher for referencing Wikipedia. just my 2cents.
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Except that it isn't done. You will never find a student researcher, at least in the math-engineering-science field, who would actually cite Wikipedia. As is the cool thing to do these days, make up an imaginary target and then rail against it to score brownie points with people who don't know any better... :rolleyes:
 
Ashbringer said:
Most professors also refuse to check their E-Mail, or even have one. Wikipedia isn't something you should cite, but as a resource to point you in the right direction. God knows when I'm writing a paper on a subject, Wikipedia is a great way to point you in the right direction. Guess what, they do in fact cite their sources, which are credible and you can use as your source. I have yet to find a Wiki that isn't incredibly accurate.

Professors who hate Wikipedia just remember all the crap they had to go through to do their research. They want you to waste a week with hunting down information and facts through libraries and newspaper articles, while a simple wiki search will get you the same information more up to date, all wrapped up with a bow.
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This right here.

Everyone (should) knows you never cite wikipedia in a college-level research paper, but if you want a good overview of a particular subject, it's fantastic. Many of the more scientific subjects are actually very in-depth and well written.

There are some physiology aspects we talk about in grad school that I haven't discussed in literally years, so instead of going back home and cracking open one of my textbooks, I can just hop on Wikipedia and get the overview and dust off some of those cobwebs.
 
There's some sweet irony here with a person supporting SOPA using a service like Twitter, a service that would be in great jeopardy should SOPA pass.
 
Some how somewhere the RIAA is suing a 93 year old Grandmother who has never used a computer before for downloading Lady Gaga Songs and uploading them to over 4,000 users ..

Perish the thought that they prosecute some correctly.
 
Another reason I will never buy a CD again.
Die RIAA Die!
 
A thuggish, boorish comment that didn't need to be made by a representative of the RIAA. Yet another shining example that these guys are not "in it for the justice" but just in it for the power and control. His comment is more what you would expect from a dock workers union thug or a mob boss, not an organization that exists to be a paragon of the support of ethical practices.
 
BBA said:
Coming from a backgound of nuclear power, being an ex nuclear reactor operator, every time I see anything on nuclear physics or reactors on wiki...I have to laugh at how much incorrect information is out there. Of course, being rusty, I have no desire to correct the world and I am sure there are many others with the same experiences I have on it. In short, I would not trust wiki for anything highly technical.

No loss.
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BBA,

You're right. I've researched a few subjects that I know well on Wikipedia. The highly technical information was riddled with errors and omissions. If Wikipedia was reliable, it would be an enormously valuable tool.

I've worked in engineering companies where teams working side by side had trouble effectively sharing information. Wikipedia may be the best that humans are currently capable of putting together.
 
If you think Wikipedia is inaccurate, then you either heard that from some other person, or you saw an inaccuracy on the site itself. If it is the former, then you are simply a "gossip granny". If it is the latter, then fix the damn inaccuracy with a cited source. there, fixed.
 
I hate this mentality that somehow "other sites" or books are somehow more reliable than Wikipedia. Wikipedia at least has some kind of peer review. "Other site" and nonacademic books have no requirement of objectivity or factual accuracy. They can quite literally write anything, just as some vandal on Wikipedia can. However, with Wikipedia, there is a good chance that it gets corrected.

Original research is collecting data. No one in high school or undergrad is doing that. However, you can't really make the claim that you writing a well rehearsed report unless you are looking a the spectrum of findings published to reputable scientific journals. Wikipedia is a great starting point for this because they often link to a large number of these papers.

The trouble with papers written in high school and undergrad is that they are trying to give students experience with real research and an appreciation for intellectual rigor. However, in practice, students have no idea what this means. They end up merely paraphrasing some other source because they don't have the expertise to develop an original opinion. They use garbage sources because teacher's ideas about what constitutes a good source are convoluted and silly. So, really it's all a huge build up to graduate level academic research that hardly anyone ever makes it to, and it doesn't prepare anyone at all. A meaningful paper will take a lot of effort and time to do correctly, and when teachers want their students to do a bunch of them every semester, their quality suffers to the point that the instructive purpose of them becomes unrecognizable.
 
sundansx said:
If you think Wikipedia is inaccurate, then you either heard that from some other person, or you saw an inaccuracy on the site itself. If it is the former, then you are simply a "gossip granny". If it is the latter, then fix the damn inaccuracy with a cited source. there, fixed.
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sundansx:

You make it sound easy but in fact it isn't. My own memories are riddled with errors and omissions.:D To make a reliable correction to Wikipedia would require significant research. And that is why Wikipedia is not more reliable. It really takes a lot of work to put together a little bit of highly reliable information.
 
Wikipedia is great when you need information in a non-documentable way and quickly. It's not so great for research papers other than maybe cross-checking your facts.
 
Wiki is an extremely useful tool for quick referencing things which you remember but just need a quick aha, thats what I forgot thing with. Fiends comic from back when we were in grad school:
20081208.gif
 
I have long argued Wikipedia is a fantastic public resource, a widely updated and easily accessible "Cliffs notes" or "idiots guide to" anything. It is a fantastic starting point for anyone wanting to learn about anything, but it is ONLY a starting point.

The same thing that makes it great AND accurate over the long-term is also the thing that will preclude it from ever being a primary source, its fluidity. The thing that I believe keeps wikipedia accurate and "true" over the long term is people insatiable desire to prove other people wrong. Someone learned in a particular field will jump through hoops, find dozens of sources and supporting studies just to /edit and tell someone else they are wrong in the discussion tab.

The quote is not stupid (other than the spelling mistake) and speaks to a real problem in academia today. Anyone coming out of highschool has this ingrained subconscious idea that if it isn't on Wikipedia it doesn't exist, if it is on Wikipedia, it is as Wikipedia says it is. The worst problem though is few venture outside the scope of the 2-3 pages of information on any given subject.

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
― Isaac Asimov

Wikipedia has become the "I'm right" source for the ignorant.

I had to research and write a 15 page paper (excluding works cited) on the ecosystem of the Florida Everglades. In order to do so I needed to consume factors more information about the subject and then condense/summarize and support my position, observations, conclusions- or what have you.

What too many student do is go to wikipedia and treat "Research papers" as taking some information and expanding it. Not taking a lot of information and condensing it. It is a fundamental difference that too many miss, even grading professors.

The quote is addressing those who would use Wikipedia as an outline and then fill in the rest with opinion they derived from reading the wiki and its sources. (and these are the good papers). The bad ones just copy/paste the entire thing.

For research papers in graduate work, generally, you aren't even allowed to cite a second hand source (NY times, a review journal, a news item referencing other sources) and instead need to track down the original source.

I don't know if other posters in this thread are being purposely obtuse, but I understood exactly what the wiki quote meant, and it was absolutely right.

FFS - There are tons of database resources you can use these days to find original sources, Google has a study search database, and any college has access to the research side of the internet, like LexisNexis for example.
 
Wow, I totally misread the quote. I figured it was in RIAA/MPAA-world speak and he was saying that students who didn't know about the blackout (or bills) were going to research SOPA/PIPA and conclude on their side.

His comment seems far less asinine now.
 
After RIAA statements today, some artist, somewhere is selling their product directly to the fan, without having to sign a deal with the devil, or have a big industry label steal all of their profits.
 
Hamakua said:
FFS - There are tons of database resources you can use these days to find original sources, Google has a study search database, and any college has access to the research side of the internet, like LexisNexis for example.
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Heck, there are the "References" sections at the bottom of Wikipedia entries. My sister (a high school teacher,) says Wikipedia is fine as a source to find original sources. She instructs her students that they should only use bits of information on Wikipedia that have references as "guidance", then go through to the original reference material, and use THAT as a source.

She docks serious points for using Wikipedia itself as a citation.
 
Books are always right, right? My 300's level technical writing teacher gave 1pt bonus credit for every typo found in our text book that was mandated by the school. By the end of the semester I had over 70 points in a 1000pt class where each paper was worth 250pts.

I actually used wiki to find info and hit up the sources quoted to find some more "accurate" sources, yea most of them were quoting the same sources that the college level text books were using.
 
Actually that is kinda funny. Also @LamontCranston, "real" encyclopedias are not good sources either.
 
When I was in school, our library had their own private database resources for looking up articles and other pertinent information. One of them was AlexisNexis, you would input keywords and it had a cite generator so all you had to do was print it as a pdf and copy and paste the source to your bibliography.

Wiki is there to use, but I never once used it. What the library had was more powerful.
 
In every class I've ever taken, citing wikipedia is an instant fail on the assignment.

Also google has all of wikipedia cached so you can still read it anyway. :p
 
I have two major problems with Wiki. First, the majority of 'youts' in school and the average web surfer use it as the first, last and, only resource for finding information. Second, the majority of human knowledge is not cited, listed or, indeed even mentioned, by Wiki (or, to be fair, any other online source).
 
SomeoneElse said:
Whats idiotic about it is that Wikipedia is not a creditable source. Yes the argument of fact checker is there but this site can be updated by anyone at anytime. I don't know about you guys but the professors i had would laugh at me and fail me for using wiki for a cited source.
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While Wikipedia itself is a terrible source to use, most information inside Wikipedia articles is cited properly from other reliable web or book sources. That alone makes it an invaluable resource in secondary education research. As with any internet information, if it's credibility seems suspect, check it's sources. If it's sources are non existent or cited back to itself, it's credibility is exactly as it seems.
 
I hate all the bs that wiki gets, its a free website that provides, a majority of the time a great definition, description, bio, etc. of whatever you are looking for. No one is putting a gun to your head saying that these are the facts, take them or leave them, check other sources.
 
I almost feel sad to be a member of this forum today. So many people side stepping the issues. Everyone is free and entitled to their opinion, but some of you are shooting yourselves in the foot with a shotgun. If you back the idea of censorship and not allowing information to be shared, than you are ultimately against posting on this forum.

How can you argue for your own demise??? Where is the logic today??? :/
 
I really have never understood why people have a problem with wikipedia as a source.

Like putting it on paper makes it authoritative?

At least wikipedia is subject to scrutiny and change by the public, and the results are instant.

I can't say the same about a book published by one person or company, with one person or companies views, a book which cannot be updated, and by the time it hits the press, is probably outdated.
 
MavericK96 said:
Doesn't Wikipedia have a ton of fact checkers that verify information? I never understood why in this day and age people keep claiming Wikipedia is not a good source of factual information. Sure, back in the day when it was wholly unregulated it was sketchy, but not now. Plus, if you have half a brain it's not hard to verify what you read there elsewhere. Shit, they have the citation links right on the page.
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http://conservapedia.com/Wikipedia_Bias

Most of the people who regularly contribute and moderate Wikipedia are biased. For relatively uncontroversial trivia (bands, films, etc.) is Wiki a source I'll find reliable, but on any political, theological, social, and scientific matters do I take its subjective opinions masquerading as objective reporting with a boulder-sized chuck of sodium chloride.
 
Deadly Ramon said:
http://conservapedia.com/Wikipedia_Bias

Most of the people who regularly contribute and moderate Wikipedia are biased. For relatively uncontroversial trivia (bands, films, etc.) is Wiki a source I'll find reliable, but on any political, theological, social, and scientific matters do I take its subjective opinions masquerading as objective reporting with a boulder-sized chuck of sodium chloride.
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Great, you just broke my irony meter. You owe me a new one.
 
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