Is Wikipedia even worthwhile?

[Saras]

A lot of it is not really funny, but this is roflmao:

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer

[Agathon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by VJ
I don't believe that anything that can't be proven from axioms is valid science. For example, I wouldn't consider this as valid science. Just speculation, and should be only considered as a possible theory of invididuals.

Anything can be proven from the right axioms.

But sticking to axioms that most reasonable people can agree to, no natural science would pass your definition. You'd be stuck with maths and formal logic.

[Urban Ranger]

This is an interesting study in Nature wrt accuracy of Wikipedia:

However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature — the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science — suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.

The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.

link

[Agathon]

Yeah I posted that link UR.

If the folks at Nature are right, then Wikipedia just is the best first source for information anywhere. It certainly has more breadth than any other encyclopedia.

I didn't think it would work, and I think they are right in making some changes to avoid some of the more obvious pitfalls of the wiki model, but the experiment has worked. It has demonstrated something I never thought possible: given complete freedom the human community produces better results than isolated experts issuing proclamations from on high. Now they must submit their findings to everyone for approval, and it has worked. Even better, the project is still fairly new, so there is a lot of room for improvement.

I really want to see Wikinews take off as well. Now that has to be better than the crap we get from the institutional news media.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Agathon
Yeah I posted that link UR.

Ah, now I see it

Didn't notice it before since you posted only a bare link.

I agree they need some kind of editorial control to keep out the rubbish, but tapping in the collective knowledge of the human race is a brilliant idea.

[Kuciwalker]

I think the best solution would be for either some rich guy's foundation or *shudder* the government to pay people to factcheck and, more importantly, expand wikipedia articles, particularly the stubs.

[Darius871]

While working on a final today I came across the first flagrant case of vandalism I've seen, and got reminded of this thread. What you see on the attached screenshot was on for several hours - if something like this lasts so long, god knows how long more subtle factual errors hidden in articles go unnoticed. I agree it's a convenient casual reference, but do they have to let just anyone edit?

[Darius871]

I also came across this little gem, which is still available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_Sufis:

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Agathon
Yeah I posted that link UR.

If the folks at Nature are right, then Wikipedia just is the best first source for information anywhere. It certainly has more breadth than any other encyclopedia.

I didn't think it would work, and I think they are right in making some changes to avoid some of the more obvious pitfalls of the wiki model, but the experiment has worked. It has demonstrated something I never thought possible: given complete freedom the human community produces better results than isolated experts issuing proclamations from on high. Now they must submit their findings to everyone for approval, and it has worked. Even better, the project is still fairly new, so there is a lot of room for improvement.

I really want to see Wikinews take off as well. Now that has to be better than the crap we get from the institutional news media.

The Nature folks just checked science entries, IIUC. Those are not the Wikipedia entries I'd expect to be most prone to error.

[Agathon]

Anyone using any universal encyclopaedia for scholarly purposes is an idiot. I wouldn't touch Britannica with a bargepole if I wanted to reference something about Ancient Philosophy.

[Darius871]

I don't think anyone here is advocating that.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
Anyone using any universal encyclopaedia for scholarly purposes is an idiot. I wouldn't touch Britannica with a bargepole if I wanted to reference something about Ancient Philosophy.

It depends.

For a paper in Government I needed to look up some semi-technical information about ICANN and DNS. Wiki is an appropriate source for that.

[Az]

Originally posted by Saras
Communism entry:

does this come in a bigger size?

[Lonestar]

Wikipedia has certain problems, the biggest of which is that it allows anyone to edit it.