Experts Rate Wikipedia Higher Than Non-Experts 204
Grooves writes "A new Wikipedia study suggests that when experts and non-experts look to assess Wikipedia for accuracy, the non-experts are harder on the free encyclopedia than the experts. The researcher had 55 graduate students and research assistants examine one Wikipedia article apiece for accuracy, some in fields they were familiar with and some not. Those in the expert group ranked their articles as generally credible, higher than those evaluated by the non-experts. One researcher said 'It may be the case that non-experts are more cynical about information outside of their field and the difference comes from a natural reaction to rate unfamiliar articles as being less credible.'" That's the problem people face when 'everyone who disagrees with you is a moron'.
Commonly used in IP field for prior art (Score:5, Interesting)
Propoganda? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Being skeptical isn't a bad thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
These articles could have been written by anybody. It only seems appropriate that I would be skeptical about a topic written by a less than credible source about a t0pic I know little about.
The same is true for reference books, articles, television programs, etc. That's what the references are for. I agree you should be skeptical of wikipedia articles, I'm just not sure you should be more skeptical than you are of other sources of info.
The problem with this is... (Score:4, Interesting)
BUT, when it comes to policitically charged articles (or other non-academic articles), b/c of people's "MY true is reality no matter what the facts say" mentality nowadays, the acuracy plumits.
Basically, this study is nothing but a false positive in favor of wikipedia.
Peer reviewed (Score:5, Interesting)
However, wikipedia is different from such journals because it is a commons which is shared by people with differing viewpoints. It doesn't get the same bias that some journals may get where submitters and readers gravitate towards one of several different publications with slightly different biases (e.g. some journals favor publishing articles related to global warming as a concequence of human activities while others favor articles about it being a more natural phenomonon).
Debate is healthy, as long as it is reasoned. Wikipedia's nature enforces reason on debates about its contents. If a wikipedia entry gets edited by a person with a bias, a person with an opposing bias deals with it directly by editing the _same_ article, instead of proposing an alternate view somewhere else where it may not be seen by readers of the article. This beats the status quo , where oposing sides tend to just keep shouting their message without having any true debate.
One idea on why (Score:5, Interesting)
As It Should Be (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, note that these experts aren't necessarily saying that Wikipedia is 100% accurate or reliable. The real issue might be that where a non-expert might mistakenly disregard a large amount accurate information from Wikipedia, an expert might understand that while the majority of the information was accurate, a few important inaccuracies were also present.
Re:A Possible Reason (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm pretty agnostic on the whole Global Warming debate, but it bothers me that the people who are so opposed to it argue on what they believe to be true, rather than what they think to be true. That is what you have done here. You've offered no substantial evidence to support your conclusions, rather you simply imply that all those opposed to your belief are morons.
So why are you so surprised when you are called delusional? You certainly don't offer anything to counter that impression.
"Caution ... needs to be used..." (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, well, caution--and further research--needs to be used before citing anything learned from the Encyclopaedia Britannica... or the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics... or the World Almanac as a fact.
All of these are secondary sources. All of them are highly useful and are used as actionable sources of information every day, but none of them would be an acceptable citation in a research paper.
Furthermore, Wikipedia has always had policies that all information in Wikipedia must be derived from a published "reliable source" and that the source should be cited. Although these policies have mostly been honored in the breach, in the past year or so there has been an increasing tendency to cite sources explicitly. This is virtually a requirement for an article to become a home-page "featured article," for example. In some cases it is easier to trace the source of a fact in a Wikipedia article than in a traditional encyclopedia.
Apparently Doctors/Med Students Aren't Concerned (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why I Doubt (Score:5, Interesting)
But that's why this experiment's results are so interesting. What you're saying reminds me of how people look at mainstream media's coverage of things. It appears somewhat reasonable when they're talking about things you don't really understand, but then once they get onto a topic you know anything about, suddenly you see how full of shit they are. Your ignorance allows you to trust them, and your expertise makes you distrust them.
This study perversely suggests that Wikipedia is having an opposite effect on people, than mainstream media does.
I wonder if it has to do with what happens when people find errors in things they're familiar with. When you find errors in Wikipedia articles, do you do anything about it? With mainstream media, you can't do anything about it, but with Wikipedia, you can. Maybe you don't correct errors, but eventually someone may, and perhaps the motivation to do that, is somehow proportional to expertise.
Re:Ah, but (Score:3, Interesting)
Reference books and articles (in my industry at least) are peer-reviewed, if you are getting them from the major outlets. You know they are credible, or at least validated by several other PhD's in the field.
Or maybe they are corporate funded propaganda. You don't know until you check the references and see who has peer reviewed them. The exact same thing goes for Wikipedia articles. Maybe articles in some given publication are always reviewed by certain parties and you can build up a level of trust, but said publications change and are sometimes purchased outright. You can't rely upon blind trust in a publication be it wikipedia or anything else. Look at the references and read critiques if you are a scientist. If, on the other hand, you just want someone to tell you what to think, you can ignore them. I just don't think wikipedia is all that less trustworthy that a random encyclopedia or book from the store and statistically that seems to be the case from the studies I've read.
Rule of Thumb on Using Wikipedia (Score:2, Interesting)
1. You have a small inkling of the subject, and you are using the Wikipedia article to enhance your understanding.
2. You verify all statements in the Wikipedia article by reading all the primary source references. If the article has no references, discard it as a claptrap of lies.
#1 will enable you to spot the obvious (possibly deliberate) inaccuracies. #2 is to ensure the validity of the information. The article should be considered a secondary source, but its references (which every article should have) should be considered the primary source.
Isn't it time Slashdot had a Wiki icon? (Score:5, Interesting)
The MediaWiki sunflower [wikimedia.org] would only be suitable as an icon for Wikis powered by that piece of software. I don't have an idea for an icon to represent all wikis.
Re:Why hate wikipedia? (Score:3, Interesting)
It has to do with why the "people who disagree are morons" article is wrong: if everyone could suddenly identify who the geniuses were, the not-so-geniuses would immediately kill them all out of fear, or jealously, or whatever.
Wikipedia is just a repository for information and who is informed on various subjects (whether the information is right or wrong, agreeable or disagreeable). There may be good reasons to hate it, but they're not the real reasons.
Re:One possible reason (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't think the problem is not trusting it so much as not being able to critically evaluate it. I don't usually trust the general media for what I think are some very good reasons, but many people I see, mostly outside my circle of friends, seem to be quite happy to simply accept most of what they're shown for one reason or another. The media has a huge role in shaping opinions of society as a whole.
Hasn't this always been the case, though? I'm not aware of any time when it wouldn't be possible to reasonably argue that there weren't masses of low-educated people who, for one reason or another, didn't always think rationally about issues.
I think you're just noticing them because you're living amongst them, and perhaps you're not noticing them in the past because people who are remembered traditionally tend to have been well educated.
Re:Why hate wikipedia? (Score:3, Interesting)
To me, this is the strangest thing about the Wikipedia "debate". Critics of WP frequently claim that supporters consider it to be a "legitimate, citable source", yet I've never seen any supporters of WP say that it is, or is ever meant to be.
No encyclopedia is a legitimate, citable source. Not in any publication that matters, anyway. My kids have cited Wikipedia in elementary and junior high school papers, and WP is just fine for that, as are Britannica, World Book, etc. They're probably okay for some high school papers as well, but beyond that no encyclopedia should be used for anything more than getting an overview preparatory to finding real sources.
As to whether or not Wikipedia is as good a resource as a traditional encyclopedia for getting that overview, well, it varies, and that's also something that even avid fans of Wikipedia will readily admit. Traditional encyclopedias are less current and less comprehensive, but may be a little more reliable -- especially on hot-button topics -- and are usually better-written.
Re:A Possible Reason (Score:4, Interesting)
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: HELL, Yes.
When you read Mein Kampf, you realise a) exactly how out to lunch, sick & twisted Hitler really was, and b) how out to lunch Chamberlain & the other European politicos were to even TRY to negociate with him.