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>(how do you know how much trust to put on some geocitirs page) The same way you learn to "trust" anything, including Wikipedia - by verifying sources. I love

>(how do you know how much trust to put on some geocitirs page) The same way you learn to "trust" anything, including Wikipedia - by verifying sources. I love Wikipedia, but I don't blindly assume it to be the ground truth in anything (if such truth even exists), especially in the "long-tail" of subject matter.

bawolff 6y ago
There's different levels of "trust". With Wikipedia i know roughly what i am getting. I can make an informed decision as to how much to trust it and how much to do further research depending on the application i need it for. After all, sometimes i just need knowledge with a decent chance of being true, where other times I need to be really sure. Wikipedia provides a relatively consistent experience (varrying somewhat with how obscure a page is). Random geocities sites do not give me that consistency, so I cannot make an informed guess as to how correct the page is.
- ghaff 6y ago
  There are fairly predictable quirks about Wikipedia: - Articles in areas of math written in impenetrable jargon - Encyclopedic articles about obscure, trivial subjects - Stubs about relatively important individuals - Tug-of-war entries about current events - Random endless lists - A lot of procedural fighting about original research, notability, etc. But, as you say, a way to get pointers to or a quick take on a topic, it's pretty good. Am I going to take anything Wikipedia says to the bank without double-checking? Probably not. And, if you look deeply enough into some topics, you find a lot of circular references to some other single source of information. But overall, it's a good go-to reference.
varjag 6y ago
With Wikipedia, you very soon develop a sense of gauging maturity of the article just from a quick glance. More often than not, the editors would even put maturity warnings for you. If something looks dubious you can even dive into revision list to spot the problems. This is more than can be said for nearly any other source out there.

bawolff 6y ago

There's different levels of "trust". With Wikipedia i know roughly what i am getting. I can make an informed decision as to how much to trust it and how much to do further research depending on the application i need it for. After all, sometimes i just need knowledge with a decent chance of being true, where other times I need to be really sure. Wikipedia provides a relatively consistent experience (varrying somewhat with how obscure a page is). Random geocities sites do not give me that consistency, so I cannot make an informed guess as to how correct the page is.

ghaff 6y ago
There are fairly predictable quirks about Wikipedia: - Articles in areas of math written in impenetrable jargon - Encyclopedic articles about obscure, trivial subjects - Stubs about relatively important individuals - Tug-of-war entries about current events - Random endless lists - A lot of procedural fighting about original research, notability, etc. But, as you say, a way to get pointers to or a quick take on a topic, it's pretty good. Am I going to take anything Wikipedia says to the bank without double-checking? Probably not. And, if you look deeply enough into some topics, you find a lot of circular references to some other single source of information. But overall, it's a good go-to reference.

varjag 6y ago

With Wikipedia, you very soon develop a sense of gauging maturity of the article just from a quick glance. More often than not, the editors would even put maturity warnings for you. If something looks dubious you can even dive into revision list to spot the problems. This is more than can be said for nearly any other source out there.