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pokeslob

pokeslob

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okay so I'm tired of people doggin' on wikipedia saying "its not trust worthy people can edit it whenever they want"
the truth of the matter is, wikipedia is actually more trust worthy than most other sites.
here is why...
1. both wikipedia and every other website all have someone to change them, just because the public can't change a website doesn't make it valid
2. wikipedia sites most of its information and then has links at the bottom to back up the argument
3. when people edit wikipeida to something false a team of wikipedia people will take it off. (I tested this by trying to modify the ipod page but the change stayed for about 3 minuets.
4. if something seems valid but doesn't have a citation, it has a button that you can go ahead and site the info and a disclaimer is put at the top of the page to state that the page may not be 100% supported with citations
 
Unless a page is popular enough, some false info can stick around.
 
This reminds me of an article I read a while back. I don't remember where I read it, but it was after some musician died. Apparently, some kid decided to test the influence of Wikipedia by posting a false quote that the musician said before his death. Wikipedia caught the false quote and removed it - twice. But many mainstream newspaper outlets and TV stations reported the words as though the musician had actually said them.
 
Phoenicks said:
This reminds me of an article I read a while back. I don't remember where I read it, but it was after some musician died. Apparently, some kid decided to test the influence of Wikipedia by posting a false quote that the musician said before his death. Wikipedia caught the false quote and removed it - twice. But many mainstream newspaper outlets and TV stations reported the words as though the musician had actually said them.
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I heard that too. It was an Irish kid, I believe.
 
Wikipedia in my opinion is alright in some instances. And if you're writing a paper, check out the sources Wikipedia itself has.

However it does tend to have a lot of internal politics.
 
I'm fine with Wikipedia, I just use multiple sources if I'm looking to learn something (I'm using Wikipedia to help learn Tok Pisin right now). I do use their references that are linked for my papers. >.>
But if it's just to learn, when did BLAH BLAH, I go to Wikipedia XP
 
I might use Wikipedia to define something and get a basic understanding of whatever I'm researchig, but I wouldn't use it as a source in a paper.
 
teachers just fear the internet. I've never had any issues with wiki.
 
I use it like Barb does. If I want to get a basic understanding of something or maybe I forgot a small detail about something. I think it's fine for that.

However, if you're writing a paper for school, you should always cite multiple sources. I don't know why you'd think it's ok to only have one source for your paper anyway. That's just bad. I think it's ok if Wiki is ONE of those sources, but you should always, always, always have more than that. Try a library for Pete's sake!

Ryuutakesh! said:
teachers just fear the internet. I've never had any issues with wiki.
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I don't really feel that's the case. I think it's that often kids will only go to Wiki and stop their search there, when it should really just be a part of a larger search.
 
As my English teacher had said, Wikipedia is indefinitely a good start for citation, but that is all it is. Branch off of it, and then use the sources that you looked at that were on Wikipedia, not Wikipedia itself.
 
It's not a matter of teachers fearing the Internet as much as it's the fact that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. I have little to no knowledge of plasma physics, yet I can create an account and write and article that probably would be inaccurate. That is why most teachers and some of my professors didn't want it used as source material.
 
Barb said:
It's not a matter of teachers fearing the Internet as much as it's the fact that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. I have little to no knowledge of plasma physics, yet I can create an account and write and article that probably would be inaccurate. That is why most teachers and some of my professors didn't want it used as source material.
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Yeah, that's one of the major reasons. All the time at school, one of my friends will come up to me and show me the page they just created on wikipedia. It goes something like:

Bob Clemens:

Is teh most awesome person evuuuuuuuuuur!!!!!!!!!
 
I actually remeber at one of the schools I went to, it was a middle/high school (with all of the students) and every computer on the server was banned from editing wikipedia because someone had done a lot a vandilization, like replacing the windmill page with,"WINDMILLS ARE GAY" the sad thing is it was the second year the school was open.
 
I find it to be reliable, but it is as reliable as the editor's interpretation of the source.

Here is my experience. There was one time that I tried to edit a fact on Wikipedia. It was in the Pokemon Red/Blue article, in the section about glitches where they talk about Missingno. It said that Missingno. can cause your save data to become corrupt, which is not entirely true. It can screw up somethings in your game (your hall of fame data is mine), but it is not able to destroy your save data and force you to start a new game.

So of course I tried to edit it to fix the error. It was reverted a few seconds after I did this, the claim being that their source said it could corrupt save data. This is of course true to a certain extent, but is extremely misleading. I gave up after that because I really didn't feel like arguing with this person.

So I guess my point is, an article is only as accurate as how the editor's interpretation of the sources. Luckily there are usually more then one editor, but sometimes one of them (him) has to be a jackass, and the other one (me) doesn't care enough.
 
TheMissingno. said:
There was one time that I tried to edit a fact on Wikipedia. It was in the Pokemon Red/Blue article, in the section about glitches where they talk about Missingno. It said that Missingno. can cause your save data to become corrupt, which is not entirely true. It can screw up somethings in your game (your hall of fame data is mine), but it is not able to destroy your save data and force you to start a new game.

So of course I tried to edit it to fix the error. It was reverted a few seconds after I did this, the claim being that their source said it could corrupt save data. This is of course true to a certain extent, but is extremely misleading. I gave up after that because I really didn't feel like arguing with this person.
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Wikipedia's policy is "Verifiability, not truth" (when on Wikipedia type WP:V into the search box). Basically it means that everything you say has to be backed up by a source (WP:RS), and you can't change a cited fact to something that may be "more correct" but goes against the current source without finding an additional (and reliable) source that corroborates your statement and adding that to the article (either in addition to or in place of the old one).
 
Valdez said:
Wikipedia's policy is "Verifiability, not truth" (when on Wikipedia type WP:V into the search box). Basically it means that everything you say has to be backed up by a source (WP:RS), and you can't change a cited fact to something that may be "more correct" but goes against the current source without finding an additional (and reliable) source that corroborates your statement and adding that to the article (either in addition to or in place of the old one).
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I understand that, but what I'm saying is the source was worded in such a way that could be interpreted as either meaning corrupting your save data completely or just messing up some part of your file while keeping the game playable. The stubborn reverter interpreted it as the former, which is of course not true.

So basically what I'm saying is I changed it and the source still backed it up for all intents and purposes, but this guy just had to be a dick.

Edit: I just revisited the Red/Blue page, and it seems someone has fixed this mistake and put two citations next to it. I'm not sure when it happened, but this is why Wikipedia is primarily win.
 
Wikipedia's whole "notability" thing irks me. I understand it to a degree, but I'm glad I left there before they destroyed all the Pokémon articles.
 
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