Kids Are Failing, It's All Wikipedia's Fault!

[alexheinz]

Wikipedia only gives a small summary of information; books give a wide and detailed range of information. Using Wikipedia isn't wise for a college-level paper anyway.

 

[temujin987]

To the people that are defending Wiki...

Really?

Don't get me wrong, I use wikipedia almost on a daily basis to read up on something I'd like to know more about, but even the founders admit that Wiki has serious quality problems.
Bottom line, I think Wiki should be used as a general reference or a jump-off point to begin research, but never as a valid source for a research paper.

But to imply that kids are failing because of Wiki.... lawl.
They couldn't find a better red herring than that?

well, that article is 3 years old and things are improving constantly. in 2005 wikipedia was still in its infancy.

about the quality of wikipedia or a lack thereof: one good thing about wikipedia is its ability to "self-heal". one can blame articles to be biased, plain wrong, sabotaged by someone trying to be funny or whatever. most of the things that can be incorrect in an article on wikipedia can be just as wrong in "real" encyclopedias. they too can be biased or wrong - it all depends on the authors.

the fact that anyone can edit wikipedia helps to actually get less biased articles that are very much up to date. the more different opinions that meet the more of a chance there is that it will factor in close to all points of views after some time. it comes close to the term "evolution". and if someone writes "Ceres is the fastest piece of shit ever" in the article of Ceres, the asteriod, it gets re-edited the next time someone sees that and is in the mood to change it back. in that example i checked the next day and it was gone. i dont know how long it has been there, however, but probably not very long.

it is difficult to prove the quality of articles in encyclopedias vs wikipedia because it all depends on who does the evaluation and most importantly on the selection (and most people that read such an "evaluation" wouldn't take the time to verify the author's claim anyway). and to be honest, whatever you find in wikipedia is better written with more sources cited than what the vast majority of people read these days looking at the penny press, papers that people leave in the subway and what is shown on tv for joe sixpack. wikipedia is actually a means to get *some* information to the masses that are too lazy to do research. i think the laziness was before wikipedia, not that wikipedia causes laziness.

i'm not advocating to use wikipedia as a reference to cite in your diploma thesis, but chances are that some white paper you found on a website of a known university, some official research paper of a reputed company or organization or a book of a random expert could be wrong too! information is worthless unless it's verified and scrunitized for correctness. i think wikipedia does it fairly well because its system demands it.

sorry for the lengthy response. just trying to be old school