4 ms·

They're about the same accuracy according to this data: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-britannica/ https://www.cnet.com/

They're about the same accuracy according to this data: https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-britannica/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/study-wikipedia-as-a...

akolbe 4y ago
Well, for a particular set of fairly obscure science articles. It's quite different in the social sciences, for example. What people don't appreciate is that Wikipedia has very different strengths and weaknesses to Britannica. Britannica doesn't contain outright hoaxes and nonsense. Examples: https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday_fails/ https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday... https://wikipediocracy.com/2022/08/11/wikipedias-credibility-is-toast/ https://wikipediocracy.com/2022/08/11/wikipedias-credibility... But Britannica can never be as up to date as Wikipedia: https://www.inputmag.com/culture/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-wikipedia-updates https://www.inputmag.com/culture/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-wi... Nor can it cover as many topics as Wikipedia. Wikipedia's quality also depends on the topic area. Hard science and computing tend to be covered more adeptly than philosophy for example. And article quality simply varies much more in Wikipedia. It ranges from some of the finest writing anywhere, rivalling anything in Britannica and surpassing it in up-to-dateness, to complete rubbish and intentionally falsified content.
- throwaway09223 4y ago
  I think you are drastically underestimating how absolutely bonkers the 1970 Britannica edition was in terms of (using your example) Social Sciences. I did this analysis long ago and i don't have the set in front of me, but there absolutely were hoaxes and nonsense which were believed to be true (or which fit the prevailing narrative) in 1970. Not being up to date isn't just about incorporating new information. Fields like social sciences have huge revisions and reversals because conclusions in those fields are so often rooted in opinion and inference rather than empirical observation. Yet, no teacher would complain about using an old copy of Britannica.
  - akolbe 4y ago
    Perhaps so, but why choose the 1970 edition, rather than one from the 1990s, or the current online one? At any rate, here is a quote from a BBC journalist: "In the Wikipedia gullibility stakes, no one is infallible. That means any journalist in any newsroom will likely get a sharp slap across the head from an editor for treating Wikipedia with anything but total scepticism (you can imagine the kicking I've taken over this article)." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37523772 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37523772 I doubt any journalist ever got such a kicking because they cited Britannica.
    - throwaway09223 4y ago
      It's simply what my grandparents had in my home, back when I still cared about school and when Wikipedia was relatively new. I remember being astounded that this ancient crappy thing would be accepted, while wikipedia would not be. You know in the world of tech they have a similar saying: "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." This does not mean IBM is either a superior choice, or a wise choice.
      - akolbe 4y ago
        Yeah, it's a valid comparison. I will let you in on a secret: I have a full 1990s' Britannica set in my home, about three metres from my desk. I consult it maybe four or five times a year, and the Britannica website maybe another dozen times or so. Still, it's good to always be aware that the ways Wikipedia and Britannica are produced are very different and to factor that in (see my post below from just a couple of minutes ago, about the desert article).
- stall84 4y ago
  I think this was your point (the last few sentences), but those 16 or so hoaxes cited are on absolutely obscure subjects .. A children's book character "Amelia Bedelia" ? A subspecies of raccoon ?? .. So yes you're going to have articles that matter to 1 person per year get skewed, and that sucks .. and it's unfortunate for whatever poor soul wants to use those 1/yr-viewed articles that are misleading .. but I'm not sure that is a good argument against wikipedia. If however we were to go look up 'Mars' .. or 'electron' and find hoaxes there, then there would be a clear and obvious problem
  - akolbe 4y ago
    How about "desert"? Wikipedia's "desert" article said for almost a year that the mean winter temperature in cold deserts, such as those found in Greenland and Antarctica, is typically between +4 and –2 °C. False info inserted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=prev&oldid=554164277 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=prev&... False info deleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=603277511&oldid=603266925 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=60327... The desert article was classified as a "Good article" during that time and got about a million views. This is not an obscure article, nor was the article on Maurice Jarre at the time of his death, which is why the hoax instantly entered newspapers around the world. So I accept your point to a degree: many of the topics mentioned in that article are very obscure, but even a high-visibility, highly trafficked article can contain absolute balderdash mixed in with solid information and really good writing. I'm also not trying to make an argument against Wikipedia – I am a Wikipedian and I love Wikipedia, and use it daily, but it's important to be aware of its weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
    - stall84 4y ago
      Yeah .. I know this one is getting buried, but yes.. there are inconsistencies and hoaxes, and just bad information on the articles... And yes that can be dangerous to a reader.. But you know I was just thinking earlier today reading a Wikipedia article and looking at some of the citations, and I thought that even with it's shortcomings, it has the potential to make readers, especially those that are curious, actually question what they're reading.. And I think when compared to like Britanica, thats a very positive aspect. Meaning.. I know that citations are all over academia and research areas, but they aren't in a lot of k-9 textbooks .. and maybe for someone who doesn't go on to higher education, they can potentially have that questioning-effect.
IncRnd 4y ago
I'm glad you posted that information, because it really shows that random online information can often be wrong or conflict with other online authorities. Here are two quotes from an article that was posted 10 years after your link. [1] "There has been lots of research on the accuracy of Wikipedia, and the results are mixed—some studies show it is just as good as the experts, others show [that] Wikipedia is not accurate at all." and later in that article They found that in general, Wikipedia articles were more biased—with 73 percent of them containing code words, compared to just 34 percent in Britannica. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2015/01/20/wikipedia-or-encyclopaedia-britannica-which-has-more-bias/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2015/01/20/...
- xapata 4y ago
  > code words I'm not sure that's a great measure of bias. It's easy to write in an unbiased tone, yet still be biased.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - tuukkah 4y ago
    Further, unbiased articles may easily contain biased words. Especially since Wikipedia is an international projects, the articles describe multiple points of view, and the "code words" of the research were terms such as the following: "tax breaks, minimum wage, fuel efficiency [--] death tax, border security, war on terror".
- TrinaryWorksToo 4y ago
  Bias is not the same thing as being correct or incorrect.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- jcampbell1 4y ago
0x0000000 4y ago
I remember hearing this a long time ago, and the article you linked is from 2005. I wonder if Wikipedia having >= accuracy to traditional encyclopedias remains true today, given how different the web and web users are today.

akolbe 4y ago

Well, for a particular set of fairly obscure science articles. It's quite different in the social sciences, for example. What people don't appreciate is that Wikipedia has very different strengths and weaknesses to Britannica. Britannica doesn't contain outright hoaxes and nonsense. Examples: https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday_fails/ https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday... https://wikipediocracy.com/2022/08/11/wikipedias-credibility-is-toast/ https://wikipediocracy.com/2022/08/11/wikipedias-credibility... But Britannica can never be as up to date as Wikipedia: https://www.inputmag.com/culture/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-wikipedia-updates https://www.inputmag.com/culture/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-wi... Nor can it cover as many topics as Wikipedia. Wikipedia's quality also depends on the topic area. Hard science and computing tend to be covered more adeptly than philosophy for example. And article quality simply varies much more in Wikipedia. It ranges from some of the finest writing anywhere, rivalling anything in Britannica and surpassing it in up-to-dateness, to complete rubbish and intentionally falsified content.

throwaway09223 4y ago
I think you are drastically underestimating how absolutely bonkers the 1970 Britannica edition was in terms of (using your example) Social Sciences. I did this analysis long ago and i don't have the set in front of me, but there absolutely were hoaxes and nonsense which were believed to be true (or which fit the prevailing narrative) in 1970. Not being up to date isn't just about incorporating new information. Fields like social sciences have huge revisions and reversals because conclusions in those fields are so often rooted in opinion and inference rather than empirical observation. Yet, no teacher would complain about using an old copy of Britannica.
- akolbe 4y ago
  Perhaps so, but why choose the 1970 edition, rather than one from the 1990s, or the current online one? At any rate, here is a quote from a BBC journalist: "In the Wikipedia gullibility stakes, no one is infallible. That means any journalist in any newsroom will likely get a sharp slap across the head from an editor for treating Wikipedia with anything but total scepticism (you can imagine the kicking I've taken over this article)." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37523772 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37523772 I doubt any journalist ever got such a kicking because they cited Britannica.
  - throwaway09223 4y ago
    It's simply what my grandparents had in my home, back when I still cared about school and when Wikipedia was relatively new. I remember being astounded that this ancient crappy thing would be accepted, while wikipedia would not be. You know in the world of tech they have a similar saying: "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." This does not mean IBM is either a superior choice, or a wise choice.
    - akolbe 4y ago
      Yeah, it's a valid comparison. I will let you in on a secret: I have a full 1990s' Britannica set in my home, about three metres from my desk. I consult it maybe four or five times a year, and the Britannica website maybe another dozen times or so. Still, it's good to always be aware that the ways Wikipedia and Britannica are produced are very different and to factor that in (see my post below from just a couple of minutes ago, about the desert article).
stall84 4y ago
I think this was your point (the last few sentences), but those 16 or so hoaxes cited are on absolutely obscure subjects .. A children's book character "Amelia Bedelia" ? A subspecies of raccoon ?? .. So yes you're going to have articles that matter to 1 person per year get skewed, and that sucks .. and it's unfortunate for whatever poor soul wants to use those 1/yr-viewed articles that are misleading .. but I'm not sure that is a good argument against wikipedia. If however we were to go look up 'Mars' .. or 'electron' and find hoaxes there, then there would be a clear and obvious problem
- akolbe 4y ago
  How about "desert"? Wikipedia's "desert" article said for almost a year that the mean winter temperature in cold deserts, such as those found in Greenland and Antarctica, is typically between +4 and –2 °C. False info inserted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=prev&oldid=554164277 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=prev&... False info deleted: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=603277511&oldid=603266925 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Desert&diff=60327... The desert article was classified as a "Good article" during that time and got about a million views. This is not an obscure article, nor was the article on Maurice Jarre at the time of his death, which is why the hoax instantly entered newspapers around the world. So I accept your point to a degree: many of the topics mentioned in that article are very obscure, but even a high-visibility, highly trafficked article can contain absolute balderdash mixed in with solid information and really good writing. I'm also not trying to make an argument against Wikipedia – I am a Wikipedian and I love Wikipedia, and use it daily, but it's important to be aware of its weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
  - stall84 4y ago
    Yeah .. I know this one is getting buried, but yes.. there are inconsistencies and hoaxes, and just bad information on the articles... And yes that can be dangerous to a reader.. But you know I was just thinking earlier today reading a Wikipedia article and looking at some of the citations, and I thought that even with it's shortcomings, it has the potential to make readers, especially those that are curious, actually question what they're reading.. And I think when compared to like Britanica, thats a very positive aspect. Meaning.. I know that citations are all over academia and research areas, but they aren't in a lot of k-9 textbooks .. and maybe for someone who doesn't go on to higher education, they can potentially have that questioning-effect.

IncRnd 4y ago

I'm glad you posted that information, because it really shows that random online information can often be wrong or conflict with other online authorities. Here are two quotes from an article that was posted 10 years after your link. [1] "There has been lots of research on the accuracy of Wikipedia, and the results are mixed—some studies show it is just as good as the experts, others show [that] Wikipedia is not accurate at all." and later in that article They found that in general, Wikipedia articles were more biased—with 73 percent of them containing code words, compared to just 34 percent in Britannica. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2015/01/20/wikipedia-or-encyclopaedia-britannica-which-has-more-bias/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2015/01/20/...

xapata 4y ago
> code words I'm not sure that's a great measure of bias. It's easy to write in an unbiased tone, yet still be biased.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- tuukkah 4y ago
  Further, unbiased articles may easily contain biased words. Especially since Wikipedia is an international projects, the articles describe multiple points of view, and the "code words" of the research were terms such as the following: "tax breaks, minimum wage, fuel efficiency [--] death tax, border security, war on terror".
TrinaryWorksToo 4y ago
Bias is not the same thing as being correct or incorrect.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jcampbell1 4y ago

0x0000000 4y ago

I remember hearing this a long time ago, and the article you linked is from 2005. I wonder if Wikipedia having >= accuracy to traditional encyclopedias remains true today, given how different the web and web users are today.