Wiki, the undisputed source of all knowledge...

What, exactly, has caused Wikipedia to become such a joke on "respected" forums? My understanding is that Wiki is a self-patrolled, self-edited encyclopedia. Once one recognizes this, it shouldn't take much to know that any quote obtained there is not necessarily above reproach, but does present a good starting point.

Especially for general knowledge, again as a starting point. It seems though, that any reference to Wiki automatically disqualifies the poster as substandard, maybe even a "woo woo"?

Why and how did this connotation come about? Wiki is by no means definitive, but it does offer general information for someone totally unfamiliar with a subject and frequently cites other references for further research.

Why the disdain? Why not welcome, and respect this quotation, with the proper disclaimers of whence the quotes came?

Is it just me, or do many members use "Oh, that's from Wiki", therefore your whole premise must be wrong as a method of bolstering their positions ? Have we found a whole new category of fallacy? As a disclaimer, I must mention that I, personally have not much run into this problem, but I see the disdain shown in other posts.

Question: Is it worth quoting Wiki, even as a general info source? WTF? Please discuss and specify your position on the validity of mentioning Wiki.

 

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The problem for me is not just Wiki, but most any other website on most any other subject! There's simply so much "information", with lots of it contradictory, that to believe anything on the Internet is damned chancy at best!!!

Biased reporting and documentation is becoming so widespread, esp on the Internet, that one can't "learn" much of anything. Too much info, in this case, is definitely bad. Hell, we don't even have a system like the library with "fiction" and "non-fiction" labels. It's a propagandist's dream world.

Baron Max

 

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You can use it along with other sources of information that you can find both here and in a library. It is a tool and used along with other tools you should be able to get good information about whatever you are looking up.

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It really depends on what you are doing. For generally not contested general information in a non technical conversation wiki is usually just fine. It maintains a pretty fair repository of that kind of information.

If something is more tightly contested then often those with a particular agenda try to slant the information available to give their position an appearance of general acceptance which it doesn't have. Also various entities are known to try and use wiki for personal, cooperate or political propaganda or to cover up reporting they are uncomfortable with. Wiki has actually gotten better at policing this and it isn't the issue it was for a while.

Further, with contested data that supports your contention, it is easier for you opponent to try and discredit wiki than it is to try and address the issues.

Finally if you are in a formal setting, referencing any encyclopedia for anything other than a cursory settling of basic facts is looked down on. In those settings you are expected to have more direct and respected source material like actual studies, direct quotes from source material, etc.

 

Though the fact remains that professionals can and do edit Wiki.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with quoting from Wiki per se. Neither do I think there is any great stigma attached to it in arguments. I often use it if I need to present a definition or quick example. Although relying on it too much, as swarm said, is unwise.

 

Well, yeah, but .....if you can't substantially rely on the site, then ANY info presented is suspect and should be discarded (or presented with skepticism at best!).

Thus, ....what the hell good is it if you can't rely on it?

And I'd ask the same question of virtually any and all sites on the Internet ...if there's suspect info present, then how can you eve rely on it to be accurate and true?

I've finally become totally suspicious of virtually everything on the Internet ....it just can't be relied on to be factual. There's so much bias and special-interest that relying on anything on the 'Net is simply crazy!

Baron Max

 

I think the net has the ability to uncover as much truths as lies, its all about being careful with your sources of information. The same goes for just about any other source of information, teachers, books, newscasts....

 

nature did a piece on wiki vs eb a while back
a furious spat ensued

as did i

/smirk

 

I agree. However, you fail to realize the vast volume of info that one must wade through in order to finally arrive at "the truth". Which, in my view, negates ANY advantage that the speed and volume of the 'Net offers.

Yeah, but there's a lot less of the shit you have to wade through to get at "the truth". Simple volume alone keeps these sources from being as unreliable as the 'Net. On the 'Net, there's simply too much info and no reliable means of determining fact and fiction.

I think of the 'Net as a giant, immense library where all the books are just piled on the floor ...with no labels for fiction or non-fiction ...the reader alone must make up his own mind which is fiction and which is fact. Yes, tons and tons of information, ...but does it do anyone any real good?

Baron Max

 

Isn't it the same everywhere else ?

 

Yes, but sheer volume of info is the problem on the 'Net. No other source of info has even close to the volume as the 'Net ...and yet the 'Net is the one that's touted regularly as the wounderous source of information ...in the "Information Age". Info ain't worth a shit unless it's from a reliable source.

Baron Max

 

That's true, but confirming your info from several sources (and not the same article rehashed on different websites) goes a long way in my opinion.

 

I agree. But now tell me how you or anyone can tell whether one 'Net site contains factual, reliable info or not. How can you know? And if you can't know, then.....?

Confirming some info on a unreliable source by using possibly contaminated info from another site does nothing to validate the info from the first site.

Baron Max

 

If you find three reputable websites that mentioned the fact, I think you're pretty safe. Pretty much as safe as can be anyway.

 

I agree. And yet you failed to mention that you might have to wade through tons of shitty sites, with shitty info, in order to find anything reliable!! And that's the problem, ...not that one can't do it, but that it takes time, lots of time. Which is what Wiki, et al, are supposed to be saving you - time.

Go to google, type in some subject, ...up on the screen comes millions upon millions of suggested sites that have info on that subject ...and over half of those suggested sites are porno sites!! So now you have to wade through millions of sites, with tons and tons of info, in order to find ...in order to find what? How can you ever know that you've found "the truth"????

Baron Max

 

I agree, it can be difficult at times. But at least the info is out there. Without the internet it would be more difficult to get the info.

 

I've read that studies have been done on Wiki's general accuracy, and it's said to be as accurate as any other encyclopedia. The public editing that many claim is its fault can also been seen as its greatest strength.

As far as I'm concerned, as long there information is sourced, I'm good with it.

 

Wikipedia is like any other general resource

I think part of the problem is the credibility many people, when providing a quote from Wikipedia, assign its content. That is, it's convenient. Wikipedia is, as you have noted, a starting point.

Depending on what the information in question is, Wikipedia can be very accurate. Take, for instance, one of my favorite philosophical arguments: You are fundamentally connected to every other object in the Universe.

I can, in fact, use Wikipedia to prove that: "Newton's law of universal gravitation"

Now, what I do with that principle is itself open to question, but the fact remains—we are all fundamentally connected to everything in the Universe.

Taking Max's point into account—

—we must also recognize that the same holds true for books and other media.

With something like fundamental physics, the complaint is considerably weakened. The Wikipedia community sharply patrols those regions of its information that are well-established and more easily verified. History, however, is a stickier affair. While some broad facts of history are irrefutable—e.g., World War II occurred, the United States dropped two atomic bombs during the conflict—others are not so firm. What was the toll of the Dresden firestorm? Twenty years ago, it was not uncommon to hear numbers in the hundreds of thousands, but more recent estimates are in the tens of thousands. How complex does a Wikipedia article become if they entertain that argument? What of the Holocaust? Here the issue becomes even more tangled. Certainly there are some very low estimates, perhaps a hundred thousand. But these are controversial and supported only by those whose careers have a vested interest in that outcome. The generally accepted number is around six million. How much weight does Wikipedia owe to those who insist on a lower number? One might say that an asserted fact has broad support, but only if we measure that number in raw terms. There are millions around the world who insist that Jesus actually walked the face of the Earth, but there is no historical proof. The fact that over a billion people might believe an assertion does not make it true. Still, though, with widely-known issues, Wikipedia can be fairly reliable.

Where things get truly difficult is when political stakes are on the table. Especially when the detail is obscure or arcane. At this point, Wikipedia is at best a starting point.

Typically, I like to read back to sources. I used to do that with news all the time. Very little of what was reported or commented about on television, for instance, was what I considered reliable insofar as the underlying facts are concerned. One of my favorite examples is the 2005 Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons. I first heard about the decision as conservative pundits were decrying it for liberal judicial activism. So I went and looked up a couple of news stories; a paper of record here, a wire story there. And I couldn't figure out the basis of the complaint, so I looked up the decision itself. And, wonder of wonders, the decision had the majority upholding a state supreme court. And not just any state. Not a liberal bastion like Massachusetts or California, but the Supreme Court of Missouri. And that was when it finally hit me that the whole judicial activism complaint I had been hearing at least since Romer v. Evans (struck Colorado Amendment 2, which passed in the 1992 general election) was nothing more than conservative cover flak. At most, judicial activism tends to help conservative outlooks, such as the new application of a civil rights statute of limitations to gender in an outcome favoring the corporation (Ledbetter v. Goodyear), or, indeed, the majority's decision to fault a public employer for observing over forty years' worth of civil rights case law (Ricci v. DeStefano). Sometimes, reading back to the source can be enlightening insofar as it highlights rhetorical trends. The same can be done for Wikipedia, but where much criticism of the online encyclopedia arises is that many who would post its contents are happy to leave it to others to do that reading; it's not always worth it to the poster to look more deeply into the hundred or thousand years encapsulated in three sentences in Wikipedia.

In earlier years at Sciforums, the period in which I focused my posts in the Religion subforum coincided with a tremendous increase in my knowledge and understanding that centered around three writers: Karen Armstrong, Elaine Pagels, and Jeffrey Russell Burton. Between these three, the list of primary and secondary source materials I needed to review in order to understand their outlooks on various considerations was tremendous. The internet helped greatly, as many of the primary source materials and a good number of the secondary documents are easily accessible. Irenaeus of Lyon really did make the insane argument about why there can only be four gospels. Tertullian, for all his historical importance, reads like a second- and third-century right-wing radio host. Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, and Clement of Rome were all there, easily transferrable instead of having to retype the sections by hand.

People should not be afraid to read beyond the Wikipedia summary, especially if they're the one making a certain point. That is, if a certain argument is worth making, isn't it worth understanding?

And that's the thing: Just because something is posted at Wikipedia, or even published in a book somewhere, doesn't mean it's gospel truth. For instance, I encountered last year a strange theory that blames everything wrong in the Middle East on Jimmy Carter. But I couldn't find anything on the argument other than the strange book from which it was taken, and I've yet to find (or put much effort into finding) the book. Who knows? The theory may be credible, but it's not widely recognized, and might actually depend on a thoroughly skewed telling of history.

Wikipedia, in this sense, is like any other tertiary or later resource; one should, generally, be prepared to explore and, as necessary, defend any given assertion cited from its pages.

 

Ignoring "Baron Max"'s slightly insane ramblings...

Every (young) engineer knows wikipedia is a great source of information.