3 ms·

Why would it? Encyclopedias were not regarded as good sources before Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is demonstrably less accurate than encyclopedias and more biased t

Why would it? Encyclopedias were not regarded as good sources before Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is demonstrably less accurate than encyclopedias and more biased towards their sponsors

bananarchist 4y ago
[citation needed]
greiskul 4y ago
Which sponsors does Wikipedia have?
- jerf 4y ago
  "Sponsor" may not be the right word, but Wikipedia by its nature ends up privileging the most motivated. Sadly, "the most motivated" are not always the most reliable. Sometimes they are! Lots o' love to the That Guy who is obsessed with the 14th century French poetry, and writes an entry that the most detail-oriented academic could hardly hope for. But in general... it's not a good bet.
  - bawolff 4y ago
    This is such a weird criticism. Before wikipedia you had academics writing things like this. You really think the average wikipedian is more "motivated" then the average academic with a PhD who spent their life studying some topic?
    - jerf 4y ago
      Average, who can say. Modal, by number of contributions/edits, they absolutely are more motivated than a PhD. They may have spent their life studying a topic but Wikipedia isn't where they're generally going to put it.
      - bawolff 4y ago
        If your counting by number of edits that's basically a tautology: People who edit wikipedia make more edits than people who don't edit Wikipedia. Well no shit. If you want to do an apples to apples comparison, compare how many hours people edit wikipedia vs how many hours PhD candidates spend writing their dissertation. i think on average traditional accademia rewards obsessiveness much more than wikipedia does.
biofox 4y ago
If you're talking about something like Encyclopaedia Britannica or the ODNB, they are/were extensively peer-reviewed. I have seen plenty of references to both in scholarly literature. Infact, for some niche or historical topics, I often find my old print edition of EB to be more useful than Wikipedia.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Actual studies (even back in 2005) comparing EB and Wikipedia find Wikipedia to be at least as accurate as EB. The level of "peer review" in EB is generally overstated in the popular conception of that work.
- bluGill 4y ago
  Yes, and in school (wikipedia didn't exist until after I graduated) I still was not allowed to reference an encyclopedia. We had them in the library and they were considered at best a good introduction before you find real source material.
- eesmith 4y ago
  As a concrete example, I've come across several papers who cite Claude Shannon's entry on Information Theory, from Encyclopaedia Britannica vol. 12, p. 246b, and recommend it as a good starting point in the field. It's available at https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabrita12chic/page/n307/mode/2up?q=shannon https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabrita12chic/page/n307... . I think it's a better intro than the Wikipedia one for someone looking for an intro overview. The Wikipedia has a bunch more cross-references and goes into more depth.

Why would it? Encyclopedias were not regarded as good sources before Wikipedia, and Wikipedia is demonstrably less accurate than encyclopedias and more biased towards their sponsors

bananarchist 4y ago

[citation needed]

greiskul 4y ago

Which sponsors does Wikipedia have?

jerf 4y ago
"Sponsor" may not be the right word, but Wikipedia by its nature ends up privileging the most motivated. Sadly, "the most motivated" are not always the most reliable. Sometimes they are! Lots o' love to the That Guy who is obsessed with the 14th century French poetry, and writes an entry that the most detail-oriented academic could hardly hope for. But in general... it's not a good bet.
- bawolff 4y ago
  This is such a weird criticism. Before wikipedia you had academics writing things like this. You really think the average wikipedian is more "motivated" then the average academic with a PhD who spent their life studying some topic?
  - jerf 4y ago
    Average, who can say. Modal, by number of contributions/edits, they absolutely are more motivated than a PhD. They may have spent their life studying a topic but Wikipedia isn't where they're generally going to put it.
    - bawolff 4y ago
      If your counting by number of edits that's basically a tautology: People who edit wikipedia make more edits than people who don't edit Wikipedia. Well no shit. If you want to do an apples to apples comparison, compare how many hours people edit wikipedia vs how many hours PhD candidates spend writing their dissertation. i think on average traditional accademia rewards obsessiveness much more than wikipedia does.

biofox 4y ago

If you're talking about something like Encyclopaedia Britannica or the ODNB, they are/were extensively peer-reviewed. I have seen plenty of references to both in scholarly literature. Infact, for some niche or historical topics, I often find my old print edition of EB to be more useful than Wikipedia.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
Actual studies (even back in 2005) comparing EB and Wikipedia find Wikipedia to be at least as accurate as EB. The level of "peer review" in EB is generally overstated in the popular conception of that work.
bluGill 4y ago
Yes, and in school (wikipedia didn't exist until after I graduated) I still was not allowed to reference an encyclopedia. We had them in the library and they were considered at best a good introduction before you find real source material.
eesmith 4y ago
As a concrete example, I've come across several papers who cite Claude Shannon's entry on Information Theory, from Encyclopaedia Britannica vol. 12, p. 246b, and recommend it as a good starting point in the field. It's available at https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabrita12chic/page/n307/mode/2up?q=shannon https://archive.org/details/encyclopdiabrita12chic/page/n307... . I think it's a better intro than the Wikipedia one for someone looking for an intro overview. The Wikipedia has a bunch more cross-references and goes into more depth.