Wikipedia?

[Aero]

Ok, well I was having a discussion with another student the other day about Wikipedia. We were trying to find out who created the first flying wing designed aircraft. So I plugged it into google and pulled up the Wikipedia page that came in first and found out who. Then one of the guys in my group said "Oh thats from wikipedia, I don't trust it". He gave me the whole "Its up there so anyone can edit it so it must be wrong" speech. Then someone else in my group said "It's almost always right because of the number of people that use the site and look out for bad information". The guy who was against the use said "But people change it all the time", I asked him if he did, he said yes and I called him a failure to society (hey its my job to make sure our Wiki stays clean, so its kinda personal ).

ANYWAY, I was wondering what you all think. Throughout high school my teachers thought Wikipedia was amazing. I would get handouts for History, English, and math printed directly off of Wikipedia. Now that I'm in College, the professors will essentially castrate you if you so much as think of using Wikipedia ever. SO what do you guys think?

Is Wikipedia a good invention?

[noopypoop]

I thinks its great, but my librarian kicks you out of the library if you use it because its not"real". But I agree, the majority of the people who edit know what theyr talking about and of course your ip gets blocked if your being an idiot who thinks your the only one who thought of putting something stupid and unrelated on a wiki page.

[IndyRacer27]

I use it all the time as a first source of info. However, I take it all with a bit of skepticism and double check elsewhere before I trust what I read.

[Xpirate]

I agree with IndyRacer. It is a pretty good source of information, but you should always double check.

[slytherock]

Agree with both above. Just a little precision:

If you look to a (let say nobody, or average I think it's better) personality. I'll take for exemple someone we all know but who's a stranger to the mass: Mafia boy
(I've take this one cause you know who it is, and dont really have much on him on wiki)

His description is far from complete, stats can be wrong (I've check them all: they're all right) On first look: I wont thrust and seek from other sources.

BTW I'm not a hacker to know so much about him, it's just that he was on TV a bit earlier


But if you take someone famous, like John Von Neumann
His description is almost complete, his accomplishments are all link to other sources. Well, maybe it's just me but I have tendencies to believe it without remorses.

Maybe I'm a bit naive on this, but that's how I see it.

[tinker]

I use it all the time but normally I try to not use it as my primary source. Usually not because I don't trust the content but teachers won't allow it.

[Quakken]

On most larger topics, there will be many sources cited and the information will be true.

I used it nearly exclusively for my paper on [wiki]lenin[/wiki]. This is of course one of the examples where there is gobs of information, many people visit and make it better, and correct any mistakes.

If there aren't any citations noted at the bottom of the page, its very hard to trust a page. If there are, you can fact check there, and usually the page will be truthful.

But its your discretion. Either way, I have always thought wikipedia to be trustworthy and have never seen any blatantly wrong information.

[chaksq]

I trust wikipedia. It's my homepage actually, I use it so much. I mostly use it for a quick overview of something. Say the PoweredUSB specifications, or for a quick look at a car model for stuff like year differences. I actually have a professor who encourages use of wikipedia, I have a feeling he might write articles for it. Most of my professors hate it for some reason. I hate people who are purposely malicious with wikipedia, just so they can discredit it.

[Indybird]

My school blocked wikipedia . Most teachers hate it, though one of my teachers said its OK, but hes awesome like that.

I like wikipedia, but I've found that its not a good source for research because it usually only provides a summary of everything; no details. Mind you it may have several printed pages worth of summary but it still is summary, so it cant be a main source for a project.

Im a huge wiki fan and a definite wiki contributor: anyone remember TBCS in wikipedia? (made by yours truly), they deleted that... "not relevant" or some BS like that. Oh well...

-Indybird

[Trace]

My English teacher was telling me how bad it was. She said one of her colleagues put an article about "Engli****is" (made up disease). When we were in the library a few days after said colleague had put it up, I looked it up to prove how good it was and it had been deleted the day it got put up... I love wikipedia, but do get a second source!