Posted on 08/31/2006 6:05:48 AM PDT by steve-b
For some time the people behind Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia assembled from reader contributions and edited and maintained by those who care to get involved, have been coping with the fallout from a widely-publicised failure of their quality control mechanism.
Last November US politician John Seigenthaler took Wikipedia to task in the columns of USA Today over a false and defamatory biography of him that had been posted on the site.
The biography, it eventually emerged, had been written as a prank, but it remained online for four months before it was noticed and removed.
Since Mr Siegenthaler Sr was neither controversial enough to merit consistent attention, or interested enough in what happened online to bother to Google himself regularly, his biography simply sat there unremarked, although we have no way of knowing how many school essays mention his entirely fabricated involvement in the assassination of Robert and John Kennedy....
But it necessarily contains errors, some placed there deliberately by writers with a specific agenda and others simply mistakes that have gone unnoticed.
Sometimes the errors are entirely frivolous, of course, as happened earlier this month when fans of US comedian Stephen Colbert followed his joking suggestion and edited pages on elephants to say that their population had recently tripled.
The errors are not a reason to dismiss the site's usefulness or importance. While Wikipedia should never be the last place one looks for information about a specific topic, I increasingly find that it is the best starting point for an exploration of a new subject.
However the nature of the "Wikipedia" itself seems to be shifting, largely as a result of policy decisions made since the Seigenthaler case, and this may well affect its continued usefulness....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I thought this was going to be about Wiki Watchi.
Agree 100%.
By the way, did you know that Ohio was stolen in 2004 (again) and voters were boo hoo inimidated in Florida in 2000. Oh yeah and 9/11 was a Republican plot and Iraq was a happy peaceful place before Bush invaded it. There's books that prove it, so it's got to be so.
Me too. I might not look to them first for anything too controversial, but I find them extremely useful for basic information about a great many things.
If it's important, I look for confirmation elsewhere. But that's just common sense.
...The content of any given article may recently have been changed, vandalized or altered by someone whose opinion does not correspond with the state of knowledge in the relevant fields.
agree 100%
The wiki of George Allen. BTW, they spelled Racist wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Felix_Allen&oldid=71805554
I find it very useful and they generally do a good job of staying neutral.
The guy who got pranked must have been a real nobody since it wasn't noticed for 9 months. How harsh is that?
You can rely on Wikipedia for truthiness.
Just like all the Intelligent Design/Creationist-crap sites.
I hate to admit it, but I didn't know who this Siegenthaler dude was. I looked him up in Wiki just now. I don't watch NBC.
Speaking of bias...
I would never use it as an official source for work or school or anything that required a bit of credibility, but I do find it a useful source to start off with to get some basic info.
I then verify everything I want to use.
"I love Wikipedia — any site that's got a longer entry on 'truthiness' than on Lutherans has its priorities straight"
That's probably why teachers here at school tell us not to use these types of sources... there are too many errors on sites like Wikipedia.
I know, it sounds strange: you just ignore the specifics and take the general concepts, Google them and go to reputable sites that cover the specifics of the subject.
To illustrate, take numbers: some sites might cover 1. Some cover 4 but the 1 sites might not reference the 4 sites, and visa versa.
If you go to Wiki, it might say the first five numbers are 1 4 3 2 5. If you assume that's wrong but you start Googling the other numbers, you're going to find a reputable site that states the numbers are 1 2 3 4 5. If you hadn't gone to Wiki, you might not have ever known about 2 3 or 5.
It's a bizarre way to do research, but it works. lol.
Of course you'll run into Wikstera who edit the article thusly: "controversial allegations of the numbers being 1 2 3 4 5 have been made by President Bush. Critics claim that this numbering system is highly suspect and somehow benefits the Republican administration. Scientists and Nobel laureates have remained by the 14325 numbering system."
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