WikiP competition?

Let'sgoflying! said:
haha, looked it up on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizendium

Anyway, do most people not see WikiP as a 'trustworthy and reliable source'? If not, why - and what are you using?
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Wikipedia is an ok initial source. It is not authoritative nor trustworthy. But if you take the time to check the cites the information can become more trustworthy and accurate. Without peer review and the ability to be changed at will Wikipedia has often been shown to have incorrect or misleading information in it. I do use it but I use it carefully. I have far more trust with real encyclopedias.
 
ScottM said:
Wikipedia is an ok initial source. It is not authoritative nor trustworthy. But if you take the time to check the cites the information can become more trustworthy and accurate. Without peer review and the ability to be changed at will Wikipedia has often been shown to have incorrect or misleading information in it. I do use it but I use it carefully. I have far more trust with real encyclopedias.
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No source is perfect and the real encyclopedias aren't much better then Wikipedia. Often worse.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
 
Wikipedia is usually a pretty good source of info on topics that are not political. On politically charged topics, one side or the other seems to get the upper hand and it gets slanted.
 
jesse said:
No source is perfect and the real encyclopedias aren't much better then Wikipedia. Often worse.
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
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How did you conclude the "often worse" from that article? In the one study they discuss Wiki had 30% more errors than the encyclopedia they tested.

That is one case of one article and hardly anything a serious researcher would take at face value with out additional validation from other sources. which is exactly what I said in my statement, that is to verify the sources.

A more thorough study was conducted on wiki that you might be interested in if you really want to dig into the details of information validation.
This study evaluates how well the authors of Wikipedia history articles adhere to the site's policy of assuring verifiability through citations. It does so by examining the references and citations of a subset of country histories. The findings paint a dismal picture. Not only are many claims not verified through citations, those that are suffer from the choice of references used. Many of these are from only a few US government Websites or news media and few are to academic journal material. Given these results, one response would be to declare Wikipedia unsuitable for serious reference work. But another option emerges when we jettison technological determinism and look at Wikipedia as a product of a wider social context. Key to this context is a world in which information is bottled up as commodities requiring payment for access. Equally important is the problematic assumption that texts are undifferentiated bearers of knowledge. Those involved in instructional programs can draw attention to the social nature of texts to counter these assumptions and by so doing create an awareness for a new generation of Wikipedians and Wikipedia users of the need to evaluate texts (and hence citations) in light of the social context of their production and use.
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Improving Wikipedia's credibility: References and citations in a sample of history articles is the article name and it is in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science & Technology; Apr2010, Vol. 61 Issue 4, p715-722. You need to subscribe to the journal or you can get it from your local or academic library databases.

There are a couple problems with using wiki. One is that information can and often is subject to fast updates that have not had adequate time to be verified. There are well document cases of wiki entries being forged or being untruthful because one group did not like what another group has stated. This is not just the political entries either. It has been the religious, historical and technical ones as well. Whenever one party has an agenda they can tilt the entry towards their view point. Wiki does do a pretty good job of handling this. But mistakes do make their way into the entry and if that is the day you look at it, you got wrong info.

A good article to dig into this deeper is:
Research on trolls is scarce, but their activities challenge online communities; one of the main challenges of the Wikipedia community is to fight against vandalism and trolls. This study identifies Wikipedia trolls' behaviours and motivations, and compares and contrasts hackers with trolls; it extends our knowledge about this type of vandalism and concludes that Wikipedia trolls are one type of hacker. This study reports that boredom, attention seeking, and revenge motivate trolls; they regard Wikipedia as an entertainment venue, and find pleasure from causing damage to the community and other people. Findings also suggest that trolls' behaviours are characterized as repetitive, intentional, and harmful actions that are undertaken in isolation and under hidden virtual identities, involving violations of Wikipedia policies, and consisting of destructive participation in the community.
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Beyond vandalism: Wikipedia trolls, Journal of Information Science; Jun2010, Vol. 36 Issue 3, p357-370

Another issue is the transitory nature of the entry. There is no archive that is easily acceptable of the older pages. If you reference a wiki entry for some research you are doing their is no guarantee that a reader would be able to find that same information from your citation when they read your article or paper. That is why it is far better to use wiki to find the original source citation and then pull those up from their databases than to rely on the wiki article itself. This is big reason why wiki is frowned upon when writing papers in school and in professional life.

One idea that is starting to be looked with Wiki is that perhaps it is also unfair to compare it with encyclopedias. A better comparision would be to call wiki a social information sharing network. That is to say that it represents a current societal view of information instead of an agreed academic viewpoint. I can see some merit to that idea, but I am not yet convinced it is true. While some newer topics may represent that idea, the global nature of the Internet helps to ensure that a particular topic is not overly dominated by one culture.

At any rate, use wiki, it is a great first way to get info. It is not the final word on a topic by any means. Most assuredly be careful using to write papers or make decisions. To paraphrase Reagan, Sort of trust BUT DEFINITELY verify.

A classmate of mine recently finished a study looking at who trusts wiki and who does not. I cannot give you any excerpts here as she is trying to get it published. In general she looked at the student body at UIUC. The groups were broken into sub groups of lower level undergrads, upper level undergrads and grad students. The lower level undergrads had a higher trust in wiki than the upper undergrads. The lowest trust of wiki was by the grad students with one exception. The CS students were always the group with the highest trust of wiki than any other group. She attributed that to a technology bias in the CS students who were more willing to trust things that were on a computer network than if they were not. I hope she gets it published as it was a pretty neat study.
 
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Good post Scott. I agree with the concept of a social networking site with a good start for researching a topic.

ScottM said:
At any rate, use wiki, it is a great first way to get info. It is not the final word on a topic by any means. Most assuredly be careful using to write papers or make decisions. To paraphrase Reagan, Sort of trust BUT DEFINITELY verify.
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Often good links to go further in the research.

A classmate of mine recently finished a study ....The CS students were always the group with the highest trust of wiki than any other group. She attributed that to a technology bias in the CS students who were more willing to trust things that were on a computer network than if they were not.
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Curious conclusion. Does she have any data to back up the technical bias hypothesis?

I think my CS and Internet experience has made me more skeptical of bits in the Ether rather than less.

I do find Wiki's computer articles generally accurate and I've used it as my introduction to many CS topics. As a thought exercise with only my own anecdotal data, I wonder if the CS topics are of higher quality than the less objective ones?

Joe
 
Areeda said:
Curious conclusion. Does she have any data to back up the technical bias hypothesis?
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I would have to go find her paper again. I was interested that the engineering students tended to be as critical of wiki as any other group.

Areeda said:
I think my CS and Internet experience has made me more skeptical of bits in the Ether rather than less.
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You're not a 20 something CS major though. That was her study group and think is what makes all the difference. That group has grown up with the Internet and one would think that by their choice of a study area has bought into an idea that the Internet is a benevolent source of information.

Areeda said:
I do find Wiki's computer articles generally accurate and I've used it as my introduction to many CS topics. As a thought exercise with only my own anecdotal data, I wonder if the CS topics are of higher quality than the less objective ones?

Joe
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Interesting idea that they may be a higher quality. Especially if it is true that CS people tend to use and trust Wiki more. That social group would then tend to be more active in ensuring that the CS articles are up to date and accurate.
 
ScottM said:
How did you conclude the "often worse" from that article? In the one study they discuss Wiki had 30% more errors than the encyclopedia they tested.
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Because there are studies that go both ways...and I don't have the time to go find all of the decent studies that can be done - but obviously you have the time to do so, so enjoy :)
 
whatever if google and wikipedia say it is so, then it is so.
 
Scott- Nature did a study and found it comparable to printed encyclopedias.

I use them as a first stop
 
It seems like wikiP is accurate....over the long term for most commonly accessed topics.
If there is an error posted, then it is corrected pretty quickly.
Perhaps you could be unlucky enough to read and take as gospel, a topic recently edited by a hacker.
As far as political leaning, someone would have to point out an entry on wiki that is strongly biased, I seem to have left/right blinders on to that sort of stuff.

A humorous example, maybe Scott et al can tell me if he sees any sort of leaning on this wiki, looks fine to me! :D
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Scott- Nature did a study and found it comparable to printed encyclopedias.

I use them as a first stop
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You mean the study that was mostly debunked?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/

Hundreds of publications pounced on the Nature story, and echoed the spin that Wikipedia was as good as Britannica - downplaying or omitting to mention the quality gap. The press loves an upbeat story, and what can be more uplifting than the utopian idea that we're all experts - at whatever subject we choose?


The journal didn't, however, disclose the evidence for these conclusions until some days later, when journalists had retired for their annual Christmas holiday break.


And this evidence raised troubling questions, as Nicholas Carr noted last month. Many publications had assumed Nature's Wikipedia story was objectively reporting the work of scientists - Nature's staple - rather than a news report assembled by journalists pretending to be scientists.

And now we know it was anything but scientific.
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or another one?

Wikipedia is not awful, but is also should not be taken as anything more as your first stop on your way to authoritative sources. Depending on what your are looking up and what your purpose is Wikipedia can be fine. But it can also have grave errors. As long as you understand those limitations and how to work with them then it is fine. Like I said before, I often use it as my first stop.
 
ScottM said:
You mean the study that was mostly debunked?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/03/23/britannica_wikipedia_nature_study/



or another one?

Wikipedia is not awful, but is also should not be taken as anything more as your first stop on your way to authoritative sources. Depending on what your are looking up and what your purpose is Wikipedia can be fine. But it can also have grave errors. As long as you understand those limitations and how to work with them then it is fine. Like I said before, I often use it as my first stop.
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That was it. There was so much uproar afterwards that it became difficult to know what was a valid criticism. Something like an election in the USA.
 
jesse said:
Because there are studies that go both ways...and I don't have the time to go find all of the decent studies that can be done - but obviously you have the time to do so, so enjoy :)
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I'm shocked that you could not find them on Wiki. :D

The funny thing about your statement and the last one too, is that you come to a conclusion without ever actually doing any research. In my line of work we call that a SWAG. If you have not had the time to look up an answer, you want to keep an open mind.

I can find this stuff easily because I have been looking at the subject of information seeking behaviors for a couple of years now. It is an area of interest for me and I use it to help develop information delivery system architectures, analytics, policies and standards. IOW, it my job.
 
ScottM said:
I'm shocked that you could not find them on Wiki. :D

The funny thing about your statement and the last one too, is that you come to a conclusion without ever actually doing any research. In my line of work we call that a SWAG. If you have not had the time to look up an answer, you want to keep an open mind.

I can find this stuff easily because I have been looking at the subject of information seeking behaviors for a couple of years now. It is an area of interest for me and I use it to help develop information delivery system architectures, analytics, policies and standards. IOW, it my job.
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You're damn right it's a SWAG Scott. You get stuff done by making wild ass guesses on things in life that really don't matter. You put serious effort towards that which does.

What I find funny about your statements Scott is that you feel the need to try to devalue everyone's opinion. Fact of that matter is that Wikipedia has never lead me the wrong way and I check it elsewhere if it's really that important. I have also used Encylopedias and left annoyed since they're always behind the times. I don't give a **** if you think my opinion is important enough - nor do I have the time to write a thesis on my opinions. They're just that. Opinions.

You act as if every statement by a member in this community is a statement of fact that should be peer reviewed and tripple checked. If this were a scientific journal that would make sense. But the statement's aren't written with that intent. So you just come off as annoying.

I find Wikipedia to be a valuable resource that has yet to lead me wrong to date. If it's super important (big money or life) riding on it I'll be sure to check my sources. Otherwise I could careless if my understanding of the farming of Apple's is slightly inaccurate.
 
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Cap'n Jack said:
That was it. There was so much uproar afterwards that it became difficult to know what was a valid criticism. Something like an election in the USA.
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Yeah the controversy did obscure the point that either side has been making. I stand by my previous statements.

I had a class last fall that had two interesting Wiki issues. One ended involved me personally and the other a classmate. Hers first as it is funny.

We were testing some references services in public libraries. We were assigned to a library to go in, under cover, and ask a question that we already had the answer to and knew where the answer could be found. My classmate went into Chicago Public Library and ask for some biographical information about Max Adler. He was a prominent local businessman who was also a philatropist, the Adler planetarium is named after him.

The person at the reference desk went straight to Wiki, printed out the page and handed it to my classmate. She then restated her question, the purpose and that she need authoritative sources. The reference person told her "wiki is authoritative and good enough' then refused to help her anymore.

The wiki article had a few lines in it about Max Adler like his date of birth, death, that the planetarium was named after him. The best part was that the last line of the entry was "Peace Out Peeps." No sources were listed for the info. Would you trust any of it? I wouldn't.

My experience was similar. I needed a list of the Roman Emperors of the Julian-Claudio dynasty, their dates of rule and places of birth. These are the big name emperors BTW, most everyone could name them off the top of their head if they had even listened to TV.

The list BTW is
Ceaser Augustus
Tiberius
Cladius
Nero

I knew almost all of that info was on Wiki, but the test was would they go there or to the online database that the particular library had paid for.

My question was not even attempted to be answered. The person told me all of that stuff could be found on line and that she would let me sign up for the use of a public computer.

It was a half service fail.

I told her I had my own computer and would she help me to find it once I logged on. She said she would find me a book, used the OPAC to find two books and gave those to me.

The net result was that I got my answer but the service was not up to standards. In this case even the Wiki answer would have been better and quicker. It was obvious that the desk staff and management needed some additional training on the features in the library that the tax payers were putting up big bucks to maintain. Which I am told they got.

BTW the point of all of this was to ask the question, how are people seeking information, in a library or online, and are they getting what they need when they ask.
 
Meh. Wikipedia is good enough for most things. If I really need it correct for work or another reason, there's a university library on the way home with access to (most of) the peer-reviewed references. UNL isn't quite SUNY Stonybrook, Rutgers, or Princeton for the sciences.

I was asking about setting up a phone for international calling at the local Verizon store while waiting for someone shopping in another store. The counter person didn't know and looked it up on a computer- she was using Google to search for Verizon information!
 
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