Can you give an example of an article with an error that you tried to correct? Not trying to cast doubt on your statements, genuinely just curious what kind of roadblocks you hit. I’m no Wikipedia expert, but I have started to dip my toe into editing in recent months.
Can you give an example of an article with an error that you tried to correct?
This was 6 years ago so I cannot recall precisely which pages. However, I just skimmed over about 15 pages that I thought would be riddled with errors. To my surprise, I only found one instance where there was a ‘citation needed’ mark and could find no major errors…maybe a few little splitting hairs examples but nothing serious.
So, it appears that improvements have been made over the past 6 years. On the other hand, I only looked over roughly 15 pages.
Probably the same caution would be true for any encyclopedia. Namely, these can be pretty good starting points but not for serious scholarly research.
that’s cool of you to give it even that brief review! At the end of the day, we 100% agree - Wikipedia is best for surface-level research. But that is what I love it for! Because of Wikipedia, we can all be surface-level experts on almost any topic in minutes. One of the few treasures of living in the 21st century.
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 4 days ago
Can you give an example of an article with an error that you tried to correct? Not trying to cast doubt on your statements, genuinely just curious what kind of roadblocks you hit. I’m no Wikipedia expert, but I have started to dip my toe into editing in recent months.
remington@beehaw.org 4 days ago
This was 6 years ago so I cannot recall precisely which pages. However, I just skimmed over about 15 pages that I thought would be riddled with errors. To my surprise, I only found one instance where there was a ‘citation needed’ mark and could find no major errors…maybe a few little splitting hairs examples but nothing serious.
So, it appears that improvements have been made over the past 6 years. On the other hand, I only looked over roughly 15 pages.
Probably the same caution would be true for any encyclopedia. Namely, these can be pretty good starting points but not for serious scholarly research.
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 3 days ago
that’s cool of you to give it even that brief review! At the end of the day, we 100% agree - Wikipedia is best for surface-level research. But that is what I love it for! Because of Wikipedia, we can all be surface-level experts on almost any topic in minutes. One of the few treasures of living in the 21st century.
remington@beehaw.org 3 days ago
I agree. I grew up using hard copy encyclopedias at libraries. It is incredible now to have all of this at are fingertips at home.