OT: Wiki-noia

[Adrian C]

New employee has joined IT operations where I work, a youngster that is keen to learn but at the moment "don't know nothing". However, he loves asking me questions on things he comes across - and waits so I can drop things and give him my definitive geek-lore answer. This takes time and regulary puts me in line of fire from other individuals in the open plan office. So I hit upon a plan ...

Me: Freddie, you obviously know at least the name of the IT thing you are asking about. How about researching it on Wikipedia?

F: Ah, but my friends in college tell me not to use Wikipedia as there is false information in there that gets them in trouble when submitting end of term papers!

Me: So? Don't the Wikipedia pages have authorative links and discussions that you can check to see what's written is valid?

F: Ummm....

Now an old-school network administrator wakes up from his pre-mid-morning slumber.

NA: Freddie, be careful. Don't believe anything you read on the internet. Always ask!

F: I am! I'm asking him!!

Oh dear. We are both doomed.

[Brian Gaff]

Actually, if you, like myself have ever attempted to edit anything on Wikipedia, you will know that they delete it if you have not got loads of published works to base it on and refer people to. Does not matter if its right or not it seems.

There are some subjects that cannot ever have this kind of proof I'm sure.

Brian

[SteveW]

Funnily enough there was a recent news report that said that Wikipedia was just as accurate as Encylopedia Brittanica (or one of the other big commercial ones, I can't remember which).

SteveW

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Bingo. I know of several erroneous entries on Wikipedia that I know to be wrong as I knew people who were there in modern history (mostly WW2 stuff and later), but if their/my version of events clashes with some f****it with greater standing on Wiki, mine gets deleted.

[Jaimie Vandenbergh]

"Almost as"in 2005, followed by a new check in 2012 - and the encyclopedias compared are noted:

The 2012 report is linked from there,

Cheers - Jaimie

[polygonum]

As I am interested in several medical areas, I regularly need to look things up. Wiki is far, far from perfect, but it is at least as good as most other sources. With the huge plus that when something is clearly wrong, you can change it. As I have done on several occasions.

Yes, I understand the negatives. Yes, I have had my changes undone.

In some ways, I wish there were a peer-reviewed Wiki that could become the absolute standard. And that should always allow for anyone to submit changes/corrections.

One example I have seen recently of the difficulty of earlier approaches is the introduction of the Active B12 test in the last year or two - seemingly a very much better way of measuring vitamin B12 availability than the existing serum B12 test.

But it is going to be at least several years, possibly decades, before existing information sources are updated to mention it.

I recently saw an assessment that it typically takes something like 17 years for an idea to get from original papers/research into a doctor's surgery. That delay can result in a lot of suffering.

[PeterC]

The reporter probably got the info from...!

[Lobster]

Hmm. I was having the wikipedia discussion with my son who was using it for his homework, and he said that several of his classmates regularly sabotage stuff on wikipedia for fun.

To be fair, invariably the changes are corrected pretty quickly; but it must depend on how often the pages in question get looked at.

[Gib Bogle]

In my experience most info on Wikipedia is pretty good. Some is really excellent, especially in technical topics where it's obvious that the entry was written by real experts. Anything political is much less reliable, since opinion counts for a lot in this area, and these pages tend to get hijacked.

[Huge]

Don't forget that there is an alerting system that tells Wiki editors as soon as a page is altered.

[Major Scott]

And presumably an obvious sabotage loses your Wikipedia account?

[Major Scott]

I'm surprised commercial ones are still viable.

[RJH]

I'd agree with that - and it certainly gets me in the right ball park most of the time.

However, anything in the 'human world' (politics, economics etc) is a product of how mainstream it is (the more popular, the higher and better the edit rate) and the quality of the sources used as substantiation. I splattered a few 'citation needed' to this source after I found he'd been used as an authority:

Must get out more :-)

Rob

[Andy Champ]

You don't need an account.

If you don't have one, it logs the changes against your IP address. I was tempted to tell the owner of the computer shop near Guildford what his employees were getting up to, but WTH...

Andy

[Major Scott]

What a stupid idea.

It might have been the owner. Or a customer.

[charles]

I had edited a couple of pages becasue of inaccuaracy. Nobody has altered my edits.