Do we think wikipedia is a good source or a bad source?
Everyone that has been to university has been told that it is a bad source. Yet, wikipedia itself is usually sourced.
I consider it a good source. Any time I read something on wikipedia I always check it against other stuff if it seems out there. Wikipedia is almost never wrong. I myself have never experienced bad information on major events or concepts. It can be loaded with ideology occasionally, but as a source of data I'd say its pretty good.
Does anyone disagree or has come across wikipedia being fucked up?
Wikipedia compiles sources, but it could compile sources to suit an agenda. That's why it's not a great source in and of itself.
David Baker
Wikipedia is a situational source. Article quality is generally high if the page has received attention from knowledgable authors, has good moderation by admins, and is not the sort of article to attract strong opinions or personalities. Major problems occur when there are conflicts of interest with admins, project members, and authors.
The talk page will often reveal if there are internal conflicts. Always read it if you're relying on Wikipedia as a source.
Cooper Torres
Wikipedia is not a source. Think of it, instead, as human-annotated search engine results. Read the article, note any point you find interesting, and then READ THE SOURCE cited for that specific point.
In that respect, Wikipedia is tremendously useful as a starting point, almost always better than random search engine results.
GG was a near perfect monkey wrench for Wikipedia's normal processes of check and balance. Firstly, it was for the most part about people who are total nobodies as individuals (game "journalists", forum mods, web admins, con organizers, ecelebs…), so they weren't already covered by WP's notability guidelines outside press coverage. Secondly, it was almost totally confined to the gamer hobby, which only receives dedicated formal coverage outside fora and personal blogs from members of the clique in "journalism" and "acadamia". Thirdly, the first people any ignorant mainstream journalist calls is either a member of the clique, or somebody whose only connection to gaming is through the clique. Fourthly, it concerns the personal lives of living persons, which means mandatory concessions to legal threats, especially from the armies of feminazi astroturfers operating open, official "projects" out of "educational" and "nonprofit" groups on Wikipedia.
The only possible way to fix the GG article would be either Macriss-style executive fiat from Jimbo, or a wholesale rules change regarding the requirements for neutrality from journalistic and academic sources.
Jace Cooper
I think university teachers like telling students that "Wikipedia is a bad source" just so they don't rely on it, and cite primary sources, or more academically accepted secondary sources. If they didn't, students would overuse Wikipedia out of convenience.
I think it's not a bad source. The only blatantly bad articles that I have seen on there were some on very niche topics.
Caleb Phillips
It's no better or worse source than any other compiled source or peer-reviewed article, as says. It will be biased by whoever writes the articles; in a way it is less biased than other texts; it can be fact-checked and edited by a wide demographic. In another way, it is more untrustworthy/more biased, in that you cannot know who the author is, so you can't take that into account when making your own reflections on the text.
Anthony Davis
Don't treat wikipedia as a source. Treat it as an aggregator - both of information and of sources. Reading a wikipedia article is generally a decent way to get introduced to a topic and is quite reliably a good way to get an idea of what the typical view of a topic is. The latter is unsurprising since it's more or less the goal of wikipedia. (see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view )
The best way to use wikipedia is to read the article and make note of which parts are most relevant (or interesting if you're just researching for personal growth) and write down the citation number along with a summary of what was stated. Then after you finish the article, look over that list and go read those citations.
Landon Russell
Hehehe I still remember when he tweeted about how much GG upset him. I think he realized the flaw in Wikipedia's design that GG revealed.
Colton Peterson
A wiki is a collection of anonymous and sometimes named claims and opinions made at various points in time in the past, present, and future by people of questionable credibility, along with links to collections of sources. The wiki itself is not a source at all. It is not even good for gauging public opinion or general consensus. Anyone can very easily edit an article immediately after it’s posted in order to make the one who cited it look like a total buffoon. Citing a wiki as a set of sources (which may or may not even support your argument), and then expecting the person you're trying to convince to sort through them themselves and pick out just which one you want to use which actually supports you–in other words, to construct your own argument for you–is extremely discourteous.
Nathan Taylor
No, they tell students not to do it because it genuinely is a fucking awful practice to cite a malleable, ever-changing article that anyone of dubious credibility can edit at any time.
Ethan Cooper
Wikis are magic?
Jackson Jones
this must be a joke
Michael White
The point about the future is that a wiki entry can change. It's a malleable source.
Jaxon James
it's fine. very useful
Grayson Murphy
It's good for hard data, such as what's the capital of Cyprus, but for social issues it suffers from the same political bullshit as the mainstream media. I'm not sure if Wikimedia does this anymore, but the foundation used to actively sell itself as a PR firm.
Dominic Ross
Here's the kind of crap Wikimedia spends their donations on these days:
Literally paid editing with an agenda–the exact kind of garbage that gets most contributors in the community furious.
Ryan Clark
It's good for hard facts, collection of primary sources, and a summary of quite a few topics. Think of it as a starting point, and avoid it for social issues, especially contemporary ones.
Thomas Walker
The Macedonia naming dispute is a fun topic.
Ethan Phillips
Ironically enough, the more internal conflicts there are, the better the article usually. Look at the article about Israel/Palestine, there's so much discussion going on there, that nobody will grant anyone else any shred of bias.
Chase Jackson
Uh huh, now hop over to the gamergate article where neutrality advocates have been systematically stonewalled by social justice partisans since its inception–when their crony admin buddies aren't banning outright everyone who disagrees with the pathetic excuse for an article.
Evan Rivera
Wikipedia is typically a bad place for philosophy. Like the page for mutualism is all messed up.
Henry Murphy
He said internal conflict. That's a very settled scenario. Not a lot of conflict going on currently.
