So would you now agree with the original comment that said Wikipedia is not a reliable SOURCE of accurate information? It’s a great starting point and a potential resource that can be used as a bibliography of possible sources, but it’s never a good source itself. Even as a bibliography, you have to consider whether the available references for an article are biased – they don’t always paint a fair picture.
Comment on weaponized nerdery
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 9 months agoInfo on Wikipedia shouldn’t be taken at face value, check the sources given! A lot of the examples you gave likely didn’t have any citation. The blame for misinformation partly lies with the people accepting information with no sources given. Also, any example of known misinformation just means that it has been caught and corrected. Everyone should know wikipedia is not right 100% of the time but it is always getting better. There millions of articles and I don’t think the examples you listed should lead anyone to believe it is overall unreliable. It is good however to not blindly put your trust in whatever you read from it, and if you do come across something that isn’t correct, you have the opportunity to fix it.
survivalmachine@beehaw.org 9 months ago
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 9 months ago
Yes I agree with that. I think there was an issue with establishing what “source” meant in the given context. I wouldn’t say the text of a single wikipedia article is a reliable source by itself, however that doesn’t discredit the reliability of accurate information on Wikipedia in my opinion. If you stripped a textbook of it’s listed citations and credited authors, then you can’t really verify the information in it either.
gayhitler420@lemm.ee 9 months ago
That’s wild.
If you knew a person who shouldn’t be taken at face value and whose claims had to be verified, what word would you use to describe them? Would that word be reliable? Trustworthy?
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 9 months ago
Wikipedia isn’t a person though. It’s a website of articles that summarizes topics and ideally lists sources that contain the info within it. I agree a person that sounds like that is untrustworthy, but that doesn’t mean anything on the topic of wikipedia.
gayhitler420@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Woah.
So, like, if you knew of a website which shouldn’t be taken at face value and whose claims had to be verified, what word would you use to describe it? would that word be reliable? Trustworthy?
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 9 months ago
It depends on the website. A Twitter post with no source? Untrustworthy. Wikipedia page with plenty of sources to back up the article? I would default to saying trustworthy, but of course I would still have to check the sources myself. Wikipedia is a tool. It connects you to outside sources of info. It has the reputation of being reliable enough to get trustworthy info in its summaries. As I’ve already stated before, mistakes have been made though.
SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
They used Wikipedia to prove that Wikipedia is untrustworthy
DrSteveBrule@mander.xyz 9 months ago
The first paragraph of the first link they posted says that wikipedia’s reliability has been generally praised over the last 10 years.