menial
msg:3449750 | 5:53 pm on Sep 13, 2007 (gmt 0) |
| The thing that gets me is that I always wonder about accuracy of the articles. |
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Some articles are as accurate as my speculative posts ;).
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justgowithit
msg:3449753 | 5:55 pm on Sep 13, 2007 (gmt 0) |
| I always wonder about accuracy of the articles |
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Yeah, me too. The BBC has an interesting article that compares Wikipedia to Britannica [news.bbc.co.uk]. When considering entries about organizations, businesses, or people it's always a wonder of mine how much of the entry was written by the org./business/person in question. Talk about skewed and subjective....
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FattyB
msg:3449823 | 6:46 pm on Sep 13, 2007 (gmt 0) |
Does Wiki not use loads of older Brittanica content. I am sure I have seen lots of text from one of their out of copyright editions on Wikipedia. That said it is an amazing project, just take what it says with a pinch of salt.
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borntobeweb
msg:3449986 | 9:14 pm on Sep 13, 2007 (gmt 0) |
I never assume any article is accurate or inaccurate simply based on the source, whether it's wikipedia, britannica, or anything else. If the subject isn't that relevant, sure, i'll just read the first source that looks plausible and make a judgement call on its accuracy. But if it's a serious subject, i'll read at least two articles from two separate sources, one of them being non-corporate/non-government, anything less and i'd be cheating myself. Wikipedia is usually one of my stopping points but definitely not the only one.
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dragsterboy
msg:3450678 | 1:47 pm on Sep 14, 2007 (gmt 0) |
Wikipedia is not a source you can always count on! Don't forget that you can change content any time you want which does not necessarily mean that it would be true.
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wolfadeus
msg:3450733 | 2:21 pm on Sep 14, 2007 (gmt 0) |
"That said it is an amazing project, just take what it says with a pinch of salt." That is exactly what proper Wikipedians will encourage you to do: A.) Ejoy its information and B.) learn to evaluate information and its sources critically. All other encyclopedias that I know are constrained to A. Regarding the Britannica/Wikipedia comparison: That's more than a year old now, Wikipedia has developed a lot since then. Regarding the old editions of Britannica: True, but this makes only a very small fraction of the total information that is currently part of Wikipedia.
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petra
msg:3450767 | 2:53 pm on Sep 14, 2007 (gmt 0) |
All major categories in wiki have senior/experienced members who regularly check new submissions and edits to make sure they are accurate (as much as possible)
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