Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?

swestcott writes to mention an article at the Chronicle of Higher Education site, wondering if Wikipedia will ever 'make the grade'? Academics are split, and feuding, about how to handle the popular collaborative project. Due to the ease of editing correct information into nonsense, many professors are ignoring it. Others want to start contributing. From the article: "As the encyclopedia's popularity continues to grow, some professors are calling on scholars to contribute articles to Wikipedia, or at least to hone less-than-inspiring entries in the site's vast and growing collection. Those scholars' take is simple: If you can't beat the Wikipedians, join 'em. Proponents of that strategy showed up in force at Wikimania, the annual meeting for Wikipedia contributors, a three-day event held in August at Harvard University. Leaders of Wikipedia said there that they had turned their attention to increasing the accuracy of information on the Web site, announcing several policies intended to prevent editorial vandalism and to improve or erase Wikipedia's least-trusted entries."

Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?

[Silverlancer (786390)]

Answer: yes. And in the few days since the last Wikipedia-related Slashdot article, not much has changed. It feels like a dupe over and over again, but its actually different articles each time. Yet they all say the same thing.

Actually, in the last few days...

[by Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in the last few days a few hundred thousand things have changed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Recentchanges [wikipedia.org]

Obligatory Rush

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

All the same
We take our chances
Laughed at by time
Tricked by circumstances
Plus a change
Plus c'est la meme chose
The more that things change
The more they stay the same

Its the Wrong Question!

[buswolley (591500)]

Look the article is asking the wrong question.

Wikipedia, to me, is meant for the casual person who wants a centralized, fairly reliable source of information about the world. In this Wikipedia succeeds magnificently. I am willing to bet that most wikipedia queries are from people who are looking for overview primer materials. Even academics can use it for these purposes profitably.

However, academics should go past wikipedia in their research simply because it is usually better to read actual research arti

Re:

[Saedrael (880381)]

If its not science then it shouldn't be considered academic

What the hell are you talking about? Are you seriously suggesting that history, philosophy, literature, languages and art are "not academic?" That kind of lack of respect for other fields than your own (although with that kind of attitude I seriously doubt you're actually a scientist) is what separates science from other disciplines and leads to the public's distrust of science.

Re:

[cloricus (691063)]

So what world are you living in? Have you spoken to a physicist or a chemist lately and even dared to suggest that biology is a 'real' science... There is very little respect for one of the main strands let alone the classical sciences from what I see every day.

Re:Its the Wrong Question!

[mr_zorg (259994)]

Wikipedia, to me, is meant for the casual person who wants a centralized, fairly reliable source of information about the world. In this Wikipedia succeeds magnificently. I am willing to bet that most wikipedia queries are from people who are looking for overview primer materials. Even academics can use it for these purposes profitably.

Exactly right, what don't these people understand that? That's what I use it for... And it's usually the first place I go, because it succeeds so well at it.

However, academics should go past wikipedia in their research simply because it is usually better to read actual research articles published in the scientific journals which they have access to. Academics need more than an overview, they need the meat, bones, and fat of the subject.

And that's the other thing I like. The wikipedia articles usually include reference links to such material at the bottom, so I can read more and make my own decision, should I so desire.

Re:

[From A Far Away Land (930780)]

The last time I used Wikipedia, I looked up Chewbacca because I couldn't remember the name of his species [I know, revoke my geek license]. Well the first paragraph gave me the answer, but it also said something like, "And Chewie is a real live person who is my god and saviour, and is coming to marry me one day." Before I had a chance to fix it, someone had already removed the vandalism. It had been repeatedly altered by kids, making fun of each other's Moms. It's easy to see why someone new to online forum

Re:

[saridder (103936)]

I agree that it's a great collective body of knowledge and love the "human network" that comes together to create it. But the fact that one person has the same "power" as everyone else to create content is a double edged sword and limits its usefulness.

I guess the point is that you were smart enough to see through the vandalism when it was as obvious as "...Chewie is a real live person who is my god and saviour..." but what if it said Chewie was a Knookie or a Wooky (instead of what he really is, a Wookie

Re:

[Silverlancer (786390)]

You sound like someone who tried to spam your corporate ads or non-notable website on Wikipedia and got banned. Bitter much? You're spreading disinformation. Wikipedia is not more unreliable than any other source: rather, it has caused people to realize how unreliable most sources are. Yet people like you point the finger at Wikipedia as being the problem, when in reality most websites, newspapers, and encyclopedias are utter crap by comparison, filled with errors, bias, and omissions.

Re:

[enjahova (812395)]

What better battle ground for our crusade against truthiness than wikipedia? Is there a better system in place for efficiently disseminating the truth? We have relied on books, newspapers, tv shows, movies, and radio to get our truth for many years. Authority should not be derived from the medium, it should be based on the truth.

As much of a fanboi for wikipedia as I'd like to be, I recognize that right now most knowledge being generated is coming from respected institutions with the money to support it. I

wikiality.

[User 956 (568564)]

swestcott writes to mention an article at the Chronicle of Higher Education site, wondering if Wikipedia will ever 'make the grade'?

Actually, according to the article about Wikipedia on Wikipedia, it already has 'made the grade', and is universally praised in all academic circles. As a matter of fact, its popularity has tripled in the last six months.

Re:

[Anonymous Cowpat (788193)]

then whoever made that regulation is a ignorant fool. So long as the information is true, the source is valid. The idea is, that any statement of fact that you make, you back up witha specific reference. If that reference is wikipedia then whoever is reading it can take the information with as large a pinch of salt as they want, and, if they know better can point out that the statement is wrong and find the source of it (because it's specifically referenced as being from wikipedia). Writing at the end 'info

An idea

[krotkruton (967718)]

Here's an idea to make Wikipedia more reliable: show the time of the last edit for pages, or even better, for sections of pages.

Wikipedia pages are constantly viewed by people. If thousands of people see a wikipedia page and don't change it for a month, I would be inclined to trust the information presented in the page. However, if the page was edited in the last 24 hours, I might be more skeptical. Longer or shorter times would lead to more trust or skepticism.

A lot of people claim that you can't trust the masses, which I don't really believe. Why should we trust a couple experts on a subject over those same two experts along with a few thousand people, when they are trying to determine whether or not information is true? There are plenty of "experts" who look at / edit wikipedia pages. I have trouble understanding why people have such a hard time trusting wikipedia but trust other sources of news. I'm not saying that anyone should trust wikipedia articles, just that I don't think there is sufficient evidence to show that wikipedia articles are any more or less trustworthy than other sources of information. Take anything you read with a grain of salt.

With all that said, bringing some form of timestamps to wikipedia would, in my opinion, make it more trustworthy.

Re:

[Koushiro (612241)]

Here's an idea to make Wikipedia more reliable: show the time of the last edit for pages [...]

It does; through the History for each page, obviously, but also at the bottom of the article (below the categories for that page).

As for showing the last modified information for each section of a page, that is slightly more difficult within the current structure of Wikipedia. It's an interesting idea, though.

Re:

[Firehed (942385)]

I agree entirely. I suppose that this really demonstrates the importance of proper citations when a resource like Wikipedia is being used for academic purposes - a citation (MLA, at least) includes the date of access. So, on the offchance that a teacher goes to check the resources and finds a vandalized wiki page, s/he could check the datestamp in the citation and cross-reference to the appropriate version history, and quite probably discover that the information at the time of access was indeed accurate.

Re:An idea

[Iron Condor (964856)]

A lot of people claim that you can't trust the masses, which I don't really believe.

You mean you don't trust the masses on this?

academics and wikipedia

[JanneM (7445)]

There's quite a lot of academics adding information to the Wikipedia already. It's no stranger than writing a magazine article, or appearing on any kind of radio or TV show, or writing part of a primary school textbook - or writing an article in a paper encyclopedia for that matter. Reaching out to a wider audience is part and parcel of the job today, and just because you won't get a citation or a CV bullet point out of it doesn't mean it's completely worthless to you.

No, Wikipedia is not an authoritative reference, but then, neither is EB.

They made the grade some time ago

[jc42 (318812)]

If "make the grade" actually means anything, it happened when the first "quality" studies were done comparing wikipedia's error rate with assorted encyclopedias and other reference material. The reports were that wikipedia's error rate was either about the same as or slightly better than the others.

The reaction of the wikipedia crowd was mostly to discuss how to improve this situation. Being "no worse than Britannica" wasn't taken as high praise. This is further evidence that wikipedia is doing something right.

Now if they can avoid the tendency of all organizations to bog down in bureaucratic protocols, they might turn into a reference site that's actually good, not just "good enough".

Re:

[Pink Tinkletini (978889)]

If you're referring to the Nature study, Wikipedia was found to contain a third again as many errors as Britannica. That's a far cry from "about the same." And that's if you accept the study's methodology. To this disinterested observer, at least, some of the objections raised to their methodology seemed to have merit.

I call myself a disinterested observer, by the way, because I no longer edit Wikipedia. Like most onetime contributors I know in real life, I eventually learned it's not worth the trouble.

Re:

[lawpoop (604919)]

Because articles had a good accuracy at the time of measurement, is there any guarantee that they haven't been since edited, and their accuracy thusly lowered?

Academia has time-tested and well-understood methods for citing references. When you look up a reference in a book or periodical, you are likely to encounter the exact same text that the author who cited the text read. Is there the same 'guarantee' for wikipedia articles? I understand that you can reference particular edits of wikipedia articles. It

It already has

[QuantumFTL (197300)]

Wikipedia is a termendously useful resource - an excellent source of information, and at least a good place to start research into almost any topic. Will it ever replace brittanica? I don't know. But does it need to? Certainly not.

Wikipedia is already performing a vital function in aggregating information and external links on important (and sometimes not-so-important) stuff. It's also a great social experiment.

That being said, I'm still looking forward to Citizendium, which, IMHO, will be more like a real encyclopaedia.

Re:It already has

[Coryoth (254751)]

Wikipedia is already performing a vital function in aggregating information and external links on important (and sometimes not-so-important) stuff.

I think this point is often underrated. Often I'll want to look up some term, or a person, or whatever, not because I need a detailed and accurate reference, but just because I happened to be reading something and saw mention of X and suddenly thought "Hmm, what/who is that exactly?". I just want 5 or 10 seconds worth of reading summarising whatever it is. Previously this was the sort of thing search engines were good for, but these days I just go straight to Wikipedia - more often than not it has an entry for whatever it is, and regardless fo whether it is of stellar quality or not it always has the basic details I need to sate my curiosity. What Wikipedia has really meant is that I can indulge my curiosity better - where previously I would have had to dig through a variety of web search results (which probably wouldn't have been worth it for the 10 second rough description of whatever it is I'm after) I can just skim read the intro to the relevant Wikipedia entry, which I can easily go straight to. If it is actually something really interesting and I want detail then there are usually references and external links I can use to track down the details properly.

My take (from a librarian)

[tiltowait (306189)]

I love the new additions to the landscape. We need them!

If I can add a little plug... With the potential rise of Citizendium and the continued media circus surrounding Wikipedia's foibles, it's a good time to review the current state of Wikimania and consider what these disruptive technologies mean for the future of "authoritative" information sources. If you've ever wanted for a general overview of Wikipedia or needed something to point to when asked, "Wikipedia? Isn't that just a bunch of lies?" then the

Wikipedia

[Salsaman (141471)]

Sure, you can edit a page into nonsense, but most pages are closely watched so such vandalism will be undone in short order.

It seems to me that the only people who don't take wikipedia seriously are those who feel threatened by it. Employees of traditional encyclopedias and M$ shills who want to keep selling Encarta, and so on.

Ahh but that's truth by popularity

[Sycraft-fu (314770)]

Or tenacity, depending on how you want to look at it. I've a friend who is listed on Wikipedia since he has done work the public is aware of. He found his page and made some updates. Nothing self propping or anything, just some background information. It was reverted by someone who claimed it was inaccurate and lacked a source. Well ok, he didn't cite a source, but then he doesn't need to he's the primary. He decided the hell with it and left it alone.

No big deal, of course, it's just a page about some random DJ, but it's a demonstration of how the "Well someone will fix it" mentality isn't always a good thing. Regardless of how right you think you are, you may not be. However if the misinformed person is tenatious, and if others agree with them, that can become the "accepted truth" as far as Wikipedia is concerned.

Re:

[Chyeburashka (122715)]

The policy regarding original research [wikipedia.org] may understandably seem counter-intuitive in cases such as you cite, but that policy results in a verifiable set of facts. Just as in Science, when an experiment is not repeatable or verifiable, a result (however interesting it may be) belongs in some other category until it can be repeated. Editorial comments which violate the Neutral Point of View [wikipedia.org] should be removed, regardless of their apparent truthiness [wikipedia.org].

I've got over a hundred pages on my watchlist, and although

Re:Ahh but that's truth by popularity

[AdamWeeden (678591)]

Well ok, he didn't cite a source, but then he doesn't need to he's the primary

I can sympathize with his frustration, but if he's the only person who can attest to the validity of such statements, then what stops him (or the theoretical "him" of people editing their own WP entries) from adding incorrect information or worse, what prevents Wikipedia users from impersonating notable people to interject possibly incorrect information? WikiPedia has a policy on verifiability [wikipedia.org] that essentially states "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." Therefore, in this context, similar to a court of law, truth is somewhat irrelevant if it cannot be proven, and "Because I said so" has never been a valid defense, even (and especially) in the academic world such as traditional encyclopedias. In particular is their stringent stance on that policy in regards to your friend's genre of articles: biographies of living persons. In the litigious society that we live in Wikipedia has naturally decided to take a very conservative approach in incorporating data about people who could bring suit against them for libel or slander about inaccurate information, and to avoid confusion over what unsourced information could prove slanderous, they choose to disallow all unsourced statements [wikipedia.org]: "Be very firm about high quality references, particularly about details of personal lives. Unsourced or poorly sourced controversial (negative, positive, or just highly questionable) material about living persons should be removed immediately from Wikipedia articles, talk pages, and user pages." Express my apologies to your friend that this wasn't explained in a more friendly manner via the article's talk page or his talk page.

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia...

[Mr. Underbridge (666784)]

...and as such, should not be used as a reference in any research above the grade-school level. Period. If I were teaching a college class and anyone used encyclopedias in their paper, I wouldn't give them above a C.

No matter

[The Clockwork Troll (655321)]

Whether circles of higher academia ever sanction Wikipedia is largely of concern to academics. The debate over whether Wikipedia is a reliable reference source is misguided; it is like comparing apples and fruit cocktail.

Wikipedia taken as a whole (including the vandalism and nonsense) is as much about zeitgeist as it is accuracy. Uncontroversial topics with exclusively dispassionate editors are likely be to reference quality because the world is not paying attention to them. Contemporary topics mixed up in controversy are more likely to have style and NPOV problems because they reflect that spirit of the times.

Put another way, if I go to Wikipedia and see a vandalized or nonsense article, or one that is clearly biased (stating opinions and perceptions as facts), I know that the topic about which I'm reading is one that some people feel strongly about. That in and of itself is interesting information, separate from the facts that may or may not be there.

Can't Stop A Large Mob

[LGagnon (762015)]

My answer to the question is no. Wikipedia's biggest flaw is that the admins simply can not stop a large biased mob of editors trying to keep the article biased. Just look at all the articles related to Ayn Rand. All of them are in some way slanted in favor of Rand and/or her fans because a mob of her fans keep it in perpetual bias. So far, I haven't found one admin who's willing to deal with the problem; all of them have told me that it's too big of a mess for them to handle, or flat out refused to do anything. Knowing that Jimbo is one of Rand's cult followers, I've gotten suspicious of whether or not he's got a hand in this.

Re:

[Sage Gaspar (688563)]

But if Jimbo was the editor of a journal, encyclopedia, or textbook, the process would be completely opaque. As it is now, I can go onto the Discussion page and find out the disputes that everyone is having and how it relates to the content of the main article. Knowledge is constantly evolving and it's almost impossible to create an article that even the majority will agree is unbiased. For me, the victory in Wikipedia is that I can witness the whole, ugly, behind-the-scenes process. If I was interested in

Re:

[LGagnon (762015)]

And yet you can't cite the discussion page in an academic paper. And most people only read the article alone. Thus, Wikipedia is doing a great disservice to its readers by presenting an anti-academic pseudophilosopher as the real thing when anyone who's been in academia knows that she's flat-out rejected as being a highly derivative, illogical (her work is based in fallacy) nutjob unworthy of serious attention.

Re:

[LGagnon (762015)]

But Rand's fans delete any dispute tags. They refuse to solve any dispute, and instead just throw around the same illogical arguments over and over again until the opposition quits. Then, they just take down the tag and continue destroying the article.

And trust me, I've used every venue possible to get the admins to notice this one. And yet, nobody does anything. Like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if upper management is holding them back for personal reasons.

Wikipedia = Crappiest Search, Anywhere

[xxxJonBoyxxx (565205)]

Wikipedia = Crappiest Search, Anywhere

Seriously, it's 2006, and you're still doing case-sensitive searches?

Re:

[interiot (50685)]

Seriously, it's 2006, and you're still using anything other than google and site: to search for something?

Okay okay, that is a bit of a cop-out (though it's mostly true). There are some cases where multiple articles exist, separated only by case [1] [sosdg.org]. Though in the most normal case, you're right, case insensitive search would be helpful. Don't quote me on this, but I heard that the devs might be working on it [2] [wikipedia.org] [3] [wikimedia.org], but that there might be some DB indexing issue that they need to figure out before the

Encyclopædia Britannica's article

[Hachey (809077)]

The Encyclopædia Britannica [wikipedia.org] article is gearing up to make featured article status [wikipedia.org]. Ironically this may happen as the English version of wikipedia approaches 1.5 million articles (currently aprox 1.45mil). The coming months will be very interesting...

No, Wikipedia will not

[Gracenotes (1001843)]

As a purely constructive Wikipedia contributor, I have a feeling (from my gut, of course, not my head) that there will never in the future be a moment, even a millisecond, when there is absolutely no vandalism present on WP. However, Wikipedia is far more comprehensive, I believe, than any other encyclopedia operating by academic submissions will ever be.

There is far more specific knowledge. Just see this page [wikipedia.org]. Awesome stuff; I would never expect to see anything like that in a regular general encyclopedia

Populus will and has decided

[otisg (92803)]

Professors are not the ones who will decide whether Wikipedia will make the grade or not. The populus will. And the populus has already decided [alexa.com]. I know a number of people who now go to Wikipedia first, Google second.

Create "official" page status

[Salvance (1014001)]

Here's a thought I haven't seen before ... allow each page to have a static copy that has been independantly verified by approved moderators. When a moderator (e.g. a professor, expert, significant contributor, etc.) finds a page with problems, (s)he can make corrections and then flag it as 'static' ... or if they find a page that is fine, they can just flag it as Verified. Internally it could work kind of like source code control, where you have tons of revisions that may or may not make it into a releas

Re:

[Sage Gaspar (688563)]

I'm pretty sure that's very close to what Citizendium is planning on doing -- anyone that's logged in can edit, but flagged Editors resolve disputes and can add a "Verified" tag.

As a professor

[selil (774924)]

As a professor the primary problems I see with Wikipedia:

1) The content is in flux and what a student sees today may not be the same tomorrow.

2) Wikipedia makes a good resource to find other resources.

3) I don't allow any web based content to be a primary resource (stand alone), nor am I interested in seeing papers based on encyclopedias (only) either.

4) My limited forays into Wikipedia left a poor taste I'm not interested in dealing with the general social software scene nor turning over peer reviewed research to have it edited by who knows who.

Re:As a professor

[theLOUDroom (556455)]

1) The content is in flux and what a student sees today may not be the same tomorrow.

This is a non-issue. Click "Cite this article" link. You will be provided with a citation for a non-changing version of the article in just about every bibliographical standard imaginable. Try it.

2) Wikipedia makes a good resource to find other resources.

This is a problem how?

3) I don't allow any web based content to be a primary resource (stand alone), nor am I interested in seeing papers based on encyclopedias (only) either.

That's a shame. It's really silly for you have such an irrational bias. If the sources themselves are questionable that's one thing but disallowing web sources is just stupid. What if I'm doing a paper on some draft IEEE specification that hasn't even been published in print form?
What if the online source IS the primary source? I'm supposed to cite something else because of your personal bias? That's pretty unprofessional.
You are living and the past. Teach your students how to judge the credibility of sources not arbitrary biases against specfic media formats.

Useful and getting more useful

[steveha (103154)]

Wikipedia isn't perfect. Nothing is, after all.

As the article notes, hard science is a strong point for Wikipedia. If you are a troll, it's more fun to insert random flamage into the article on George W. Bush than it is to hack up the discussion of the Fourier Transform or something; and science geeks are more likely to be comfortable with computers than English teachers are. Another strong point of Wikipedia is pop culture. What's the name of Spiderman's secret identity? I don't know that the Encyclop

Depends on what you are looking for

[Umbral Blot (737704)]

Wikipedia is OK for most people on most subjects. However when you want information on a specialized topic it is better to find other sources. For example when I need to look up something about philosophy I go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [stanford.edu] whose articles are contributed by people with PhDs about their area of expertise. It also has copious references on each topic. Such a source will always be better than wikipedia, at least if you need the most accurate information.

Speaking of academics

[silkstorm (1018576)]

My wife, a professor at a local community college, has used Wikipedia a few times to quickly gather sources on a topic she's not too familiar with. Then, she'll use the article to sort out primary [wikipedia.org] and secondary [wikipedia.org] sources if there cited in Wikipedia. She never actually relies on the entries *themselves*. During her work on her Masters Degree, she took a class on Historiography [wikipedia.org]. By studying how History is written, not just what is true and false, she learned a lot about how to tell the difference between well thought out writing, and poor writing [in text books, in others thesis, etc...] and the importance of citing *primary* sources in those entries, and not to rely on secondary sources unless they are known to be trustworthy, or primary sources aren't available anymore (destroyed, stolen, etc.). Wikipedia articles should never be used as a primary or secondary source in the academic world, as I can guarantee if one of her students cites Wikipedia entries in a bibliography on a paper, she will probably laugh and that student will need to work harder finding better sources on the next paper.

Scholars Already Lost Before They Joined

[MSTCrow5429 (642744)]

Scholars joining Wikipedia in the hopes of fixing the thing is a mistake. The great migration(s) from Wikipedia have been primarily experts who are chased off by griefers. Getting a new batch involved will just set things up for another exodus.

funny Wikipedia piece on McSweeney's

[toby (759)]

I'm Starting to Suspect That a Dungeons and Dragons Player Named "Elgdorf the Mage" Is Abusing His Wikipedia Editorial Privileges. [mcsweeneys.net]

If more professors come to wikipedia

[arodland (127775)]

they'll find out what everyone else already knows -- wikipedia is prejudiced against people who actually know what they're talking about. The best information will be removed on the grounds that the submitter is biased and unreliable (never mind the tenet of criticizing the message, not the messenger). Not only is Wikipedia not interested in finding the truth, you're not even allowed to suggest that it exists.

Re:Citations: a moving target

[interiot (50685)]

By clicking on the history tab, you can generate a URL for a specific article version, and you cite that specific URL [wikipedia.org] in your references. Special:Cite [wikipedia.org] is a tool that helps with this (it used to be linked from every page, I'm not sure why it went away)