Wikipedia is, quite possibly, one of the most famous websites on the Internet; it's a great wealth of knowledge, with pages on nearly every single subject, though it comes with a catch... anybody can edit it. What that obviously means is that any random person can, quite easily, change an article to whatever they please, creating some problems. The organization hopes to put an end to this, and, according to CNN, they will soon be using volunteer editors from the Wikipedia community.The volunteers will have the trust of Wikipedia, and they will be responsible for observing and approving changes made to certain articles regarding "living people." To begin, this will be tested on English language articles only, and will hopefully improve the quality of information on the website, preventing any uncouth edits. However, this isn't all well and good for some people. CNN stated that some people believe this is deviating from Wikipedia's core values, and in a way, defeats the purpose of the website. On the flip-side, others think that this nothing but a good thing, helping the ever-growing community to stay in check.
Some tech celebrities are all for the decision; Caterina Fake, who founded the popular photography website Flickr, said that, "It would basically be like a wall of graffiti in a bathroom. It's not going to be a very high level of discourse," referring to the lack of rules currently in place. In contrast to this, though, a man named Marshall Kirkpatrick (lead writer at ReadWriteWeb), said, "As things get more and more popular online, some of these experiments realize they need to temper some of their experimental nature and learn from more traditional forms because they're just not sustainable. It makes me shed a little tear, too, because presumably it will lead to a slowdown of new content creation, and it does seem like a departure from the essential nature of Wikipedia."
Whether this is a good or bad decision is purely up to the user, as it has both beneficial and depreciative effects. Hopefully, we'll start seeing greater accuracy in Wikipedia articles from now on, though it's unclear when the editors will be fully in place.
I have found some people of "high regard" in the wikipedia community to be quite anal about edits, reverting and deleting etc. Sometimes people just want to add some information and not have the hassle of perfect ways to present the data.
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/wikip...es_750_years_of
It's been estimated that around 40% of the articles are inaccurate and/or outdated.
I've seen many examples of this myself.
They even contradict themselves with many articles saying the complete opposite of something in another article and they even contradict thelselves in the same article.
wikipedia sucks and it's about time people realised that.
It's been estimated that around 40% of the articles are inaccurate and/or outdated.
I've seen many examples of this myself.
They even contradict themselves with many articles saying the complete opposite of something in another article and they even contradict thelselves in the same article.
wikipedia sucks and it's about time people realised that.
Proof of this with a article with sources?
It's been estimated that around 40% of the articles are inaccurate and/or outdated.
I've seen many examples of this myself.
They even contradict themselves with many articles saying the complete opposite of something in another article and they even contradict thelselves in the same article.
wikipedia sucks and it's about time people realised that.
Proof of this with a article with sources?
en.wikipedia.org is enough proof about it, there are several entries flooded with tags that say "unverified source","cleanup needing" and such.
Or just pick one article about (illegal) drugs.
Or just pick one article about (illegal) drugs.
No, that isn't "proof about it".
Wikipedia doesn't make a claim to 100% accuracy, though of course that is the aim - as long as you bear that in mind when reading articles, you're set. They link to the original sources for a reason: for people to check.
For example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis
It is the same that Microsoft will claim that "Windows 7 *contain* a lot of bugs and holes, just bare with it". Credibility zero.
Wikipedia can be cool when/if you want to point someone to a "Reader's Digest" sort of summary on a topic, provided you screen the entry or entries 1st. It can also be cool when you Google & most hits are 4 sales -- Wikipedia may or may not be accurate, but it's not trying to sell you some product... especially if it's got some decent links, it can be a useful starting point.
That said, on almost countless topics even recognized experts don't all agree, so Wikipedia is rarely going to be a one-stop, authoritative reference, regardless the credentials, knowledge, & occasional bias of whatever authors make a contribution... and yes, many authors are as they say: "Legends in their own mind". ;-) It's 1 source among many, & IMHO any attempt to clean out some of the more obvious trash can't hurt it.
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