How Accurate Is Wikipedia?
Published Tue, Nov 14 2006 9:57 AM
Technorati Tags: Computers and Internet, Wikipedia
Apparently not very accurate...
Professor David Cadden was correcting student papers recently when he noticed a puzzling reference to the United States fighting Spain in World War I.
The problem: The two countries never tangled during the first world war. Spain was neutral.
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"Students now almost exclusively get their information on the Internet, and you see Wikipedia popping out. They've totally forgotten there is a thing called a library where there are things called books," Cadden said.
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Some teachers and professors ban their students from Wikipedia, while others actively urge their students to become Wikipedians.
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"I think anyone using Wikipedia has to be skeptical about the content, but people should be skeptical about all the content they read," said Alexander Halavais, a professor of interactive communications at Quinnipiac University.
Read more at Technology News
In my experience, Wikipedia isn't very accurate, and the editors are biased. The open source nature of Wikipedia makes it subject to manipulation by unscrupulous individuals, and a potential source of malware.
Even Larry Sanger, a co-founder of the site thinks it's too open to abuse and errors. Take everything you read on Wikipedia with a grain of salt, and verify the citations are truthful before you rely on it.
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Abi Paramaguru responded with:
 | This begs the question- is Citizendium going to be much better? Interesting perspectives available at:
http://www.cyberlawcentre.org/unlocking-ip/blog/2006/11/citizendium-v-wikipedia.html |
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