Franciov Weblog

Share This

“Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.”

I’ve just finished reading a very interesting article about the Wikipedia debate. How accurate is it? (Wikipedia, not the article ) It could be strange to reply using a Wikipedia item about Reliability of Wikipedia, but it isn’t an unreal scenario. Wikipedia has a page with a recommendation for students conducting research. Look at the last phrase!

“Students should never use information in Wikipedia for formal purposes (such as a school essay) until they have checked those external sources. Fortunately, Wikipedia cites its sources more frequently than most other publications. … If you are using Wikipedia for important research or a school project, you should always verify the information somewhere else. You should also check that the other source does not rely on Wikipedia for its information.“

This is funny! Take also a look at Wikipedia school FAQs and Wikipedia reccomendation for school and university projects.

This post points out how Wikipedia could be more reliable than 6-10 years old (static) books. And this could be true in a measure. But, personally, leaving out topics which need endless updates, I feel more confident using an “papery old-style” encyclopedia. However I never do it, maybe ’cause i’m lazy, maybe ’cause I love the risk

Popularity: 28% [?]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 10:20 pm and is filed under Web, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.