Forum - View topicOT; Wikipedia
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BoygetsfireD
 Posts: 475 Location: earth |
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I know that this is rather off topic, and understand completely if the mods wish to lock it
Why does everybody here like Wikipedia so much? It may have some good information sometimes, but how does one trust it so much, when any body can go in a change an entry? |
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ShadrachAnki
 Posts: 180 Location: New England |
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I think it's precisely because anyone can come in and change the entry that it's more trustworthy than other internet sites. When you have documentation for a large collected knowledge pool (as with a site such as Wikipedia), errors are largely self-correcting, although it may take a bit of time.
If someone enters false or inaccurate information (intentionally or not) chances are high that someone else will see the error and correct it. Basically, you take what you read there with a grain of salt instead of the heaping spoonful you have to take with any number of other websites. ~Shadrach Anki |
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Azathrael
 Posts: 745 |
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It's kind of like asking why people like Google so much...
I don't really care for "subjectivity" that someone mentioned in another thread about Wikipedia. I find it to be the most accessible, quite detailed compared to other (free) encyclopedias, and it's easy to browse through. I used Wikipedia as the sole source of an entire research paper for my Asian Mythology class (It was a 101 course, lay off me  ) and I managed a 92 so I don't think it's inaccurate either.
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patch
 Posts: 677 Location: New York, NY |
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Sorry, I couldn't resist 
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BoygetsfireD
Posts: 475 Location: earth |
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yes, and I just changed "Why Wiki is so great"
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patch
Posts: 677 Location: New York, NY |
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yes but look at the "History" of that page to see how long it lasted: 04:47, 15 February 2006 Titoxd m (Reverted edits by [your ip removed] to last version by Marudubshinki) 04:47, 15 February 2006 [your ip removed] Under one minute 
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cyrax777
 Posts: 1825 Location: the desert |
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I woudlnt use it for a school report thats for sure.
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Fiction Alchemist
Posts: 438 |
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DELETED.
Last edited by Fiction Alchemist on Thu Sep 08, 2022 7:55 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Abarenbo Shogun
 Posts: 1573 |
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Wikipedia actually has it's faults and it's pros.
Recently, it was discovered that some Politicians have been "sugarcoating" their bios and "commiting sabatoge" others on Wikipedia. Before that, Wikipedia was accused of Libel due to incorrect facts posted on soemone's bio. Because of it's openess to edits, it can sometimes get nasty over what info should and shouldn't be added. Some Anime listings are sometimes vandalized as well, if someone hates a particular series. Plus some of the "Fanboys and Girls" will "protect" their favorite series from info they deem "bad" (especially any popular series like Naruto and One Piece) when it is fact. And yes, our favorite "Anime" company we love to hate, 4Kids Entertainment, has been the victim of lots of vandalism. I actually left Wikipedia over a dispute when I questioned the veracity of some articles and their policy on being "neutral" when I pointed out that certain shows on Discovery Channel would actually seem to show alot of bias because it seems that the show invited bias in the first place and it would violate the rules. The Administrators that I encountered were complete zealots and never even bothered to listen. The final nail was when I tried to make an article for Anime News Network, the edited screenshot of the marque above with Jadress that I uploaded was cited for "Copyright Violations" when I clearly tagged it as Logo and Screenshot, which would be right. I just deleted all my cookies for Wikipedia and left after that. That was like a few months ago. ------------------------------ Now, on the pro side: Because of it's openess, it can also swing to the other side. The openess to edits encourages those that "are in the know" can go in, edit it to be right, and then leave it as is. Also, since it can be edited at will, it has a distinct advantage over print media, because it can change as new info develops rather than remain stagnent for a year before a new printing is made a year after. If you look at any current event (Dick Cheney shooting his hunting partner, the Olympics, etc.) you can see that it changes as the story develops. Something Dynamic...... Wikipedia has it's pros, and it has it's cons. Take it as you will. |
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Highwayman
Posts: 12 |
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useing wiki as a source for a paper or something would be pretty useless because the articles change so much, but its still a useful tool. You can quickly search for most anything and most of the articles have links to outside sources that you can use in papers, plus you can find very topical entries.
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joel_s95387
Posts: 1804 Location: California... The Village Hidden In The Porn |
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I hope this isn't trolling, I still don't know what that means someone tells me and later I forget, but I like using wikipedia. My English 101 teacher last year told me not to rely too much on the information on that site so I don't really use it for essays.
I like to go on there to know more about animes as well. This encyclopedia only offers a brief description, and the rest is VA's and Directors and everything else I don't care for, but wikipedia explains more of what the show is actually about. I really like their page on Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex because it explains where the laughing man symbol, and quote come from and other references in the anime. I just use it for anime purposes and not for school. |
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pythos
Posts: 127 Location: Denver, CO |
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John Seigenthaler would disagree with you. In his case it wasn't "self-correcting."(See links.) A false Wikipedia 'biography' http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy |
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Patachu
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 1325 Location: San Diego |
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I take Wiki for what it is: "The internet's biggest collection of pop-culture trivia." (Can't remember who said that, so I'm paraphrasing.)
It's good for looking up topics like computer/web culture, popular entertainment, and random geeky shit. This is because the main demographic of contributors to Wikipedia is heavy internet users who are into that kind of stuff. I would NOT use it for anything more esoteric, like advanced music theory, engineering materials science, or even obscure "alternative" manga and anime. I also avoid using it for controversial political/social topics because those usually just turn into partisan slugfests like so many things on the internet. So, while Wikipedia has some terrific capabilities, it's also important to understand its limitations. |
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deathbringer
Posts: 276 |
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I don't understand that. What if I make up a word that has a really obscure definition? Who's going to be able to prove me wrong? Sure, if you put something in there like "Ray Charles really isn't blind" or something like that, it would be corrected really quickly, but if I wrote that the frominga tree was a tree that produced a rare species of nuts but was rapidly consumed as it was the a source of food for a large number of herbivore dinosaurs, and has now been extinct for millions of years, are you going to be able to refute that? The really obvious lies get corrected easily, but something like that could fly under the radar. I've really only looked up one word on Wikipedia, and the definition they had down didn't make my understanding of it any clearer then it was before I looked at it. |
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Abarenbo Shogun
Posts: 1573 |
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Actually, they have an undead army of administrators and whatnot patrolling the site. Plus the new articles are monitored by a special viewing webpage only seen by administrators on that site (Don't ask me how I know this.) The chances of you adding something extremely stupid like that and getting away with it is about as likely as you somehow gaining control of ANN. |
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