5 ms·

Also, never use Wikipedia for anything. Since everybody can change it, it's useless.

by madez 12y ago

V-2 12y ago
Well, I certainly wouldn't use it without crosschecking facts ;)
- nfoz 12y ago
  Do you cross-check everything else? I'm sure it depends in what capacity the information is "used", right?
  - sirsuki 12y ago
    Something I never understood. When referencing a "real" encyclopedia you have to include the revision number thus if information changes in later revisions your citation remains intact. Wikipedia is exactly the same. When you cite Wikipedia you should include the revision number so that if it changes (as it frequently does) you haven't lost the text referenced. Could higher change frequency provide higher mis-information? Sure but a "real" encyclopedia has the same problem (maybe at a smaller scale) So in either case you have to either pay someone to fact check (like most encyclopedia companies do and could easily be done for Wikipedia) and/or do the fact check yourself. The later being the core at Wikipedia culture^[citation needed].
    - V-2 12y ago
      Any real encyclopedias where hoaxes would not get corrected for years? See http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/04/15/the-great-wikipedia-hoax/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/04/... - it's been featured on the main page just a few days ago. The same article points out that the editors-to-articles ratio has been rapidly falling from 2007 to 2014 (it bounced back a little this year, but it's too early to say if it isn't just a fluke).
- ikeboy 12y ago
  Information that's either true or completely made up is usually true. So if they say "the population of X is Y", or something like that, I'll trust them.
minikites 12y ago
Wikipedia is actually pretty bad, try following up on any of the references. If they're web references, the chances of it being a 404 page are almost 100% in my experience. Not to mention the editors being almost all white men and the opaque process that limits most "non-male" topics: http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/wikipedia-college-classes-yale-brown/ http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/wikipedia-college-classes-... Wikipedia is basically infotainment, the Buzzfeed of encyclopedias. See also: Wikigroaning: http://www.somethingawful.com/news/wikigroaning/ http://www.somethingawful.com/news/wikigroaning/ > For example, the article called "Knight." Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the population. In this case, we'll go with "Jedi Knight." Open both of the links and compare the lengths of the two articles. Compare not only that, but how well concepts are explored, and the greater professionalism with which the longer article was likely created." Wikipedia is no substitute for a real subject encyclopedia.
- blumkvist 12y ago
  >Wikipedia is no substitute for a real subject encyclopedia. Who says it is? It's for quick pointers.
  - minikites 12y ago
    A subject encyclopedia will have much better pointers, definitely real citations, often annotated citations. What "serious" purpose does Wikipedia serve, other than being a timely source for things that haven't made it into a subject encyclopedia yet?
    - blumkvist 12y ago
      The serious purpose of having a little (a lot) of everything in one place. For free. For everyone. In any language. A kid in India can hop from physiology, to psychology, to medicine, to anthropology, to geography, to history, to economics, to... Do you get the point? I guess we shoould just plug wikipedia off and stick a giant banner that says "Wikipedia is not sufficient for scientific inquiry, so we closed it. Go buy Thomson Web of Science." I'm sure Maadhav in India will be very happy and rest assured that no incomplete information is on the Internet.
notahacker 12y ago
Ironically, many pages of Wikipedia are useless because they're so difficult to permanently change...
- noblethrasher 12y ago
  Wikipedia + the talk pages is closer to an ideal encyclopedia. One of the major criticism of Wikipedia is that it preempts the possibility of having multiple encyclopedias, and thus multiple points of view. But, once you consider the talk pages, you not only restore the multiple points of view, but you also get to witness the contests between them. In that way, at least, this is better than having multiple encyclopedias.
  - mwexler 12y ago
    Of course, another aspect of encyclopedias is that they organize a body of information; while the main page may force a structure of some kind, talk pages tend to go all over the place. But agreed that they add much needed facts and POVs beyond the one wikipedia "way" on the main page.
  - mkhpalm 12y ago
    Agreed, but that implies that people haven't given up on trying to get facts or information into pages that are managed nefariously. To me it feels like the talk sections have been dying off. So many things at wikipedia have become advertorials.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    My ideal encyclopedia does not have hundreds of thousands of words of discussion about the important differences between en dash, em dash, minus and hyphen. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342 Here's fifteen thousand words of discussion about en and em dashes and hyphens and minus signs. And at the end of that one discussion? No consensus. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_101#Hyphens_and_endashs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(poli... And this is about punctuation. Imagine what it's like on actually contentious issues - Balkans wars, various islands claimed by more than one territory. Etc.
VieElm 12y ago
Well if you end up with a vandalized wikipedia page maybe you end up misinformed. If you end up with wrong map data, maybe you end up lost or dead.

Also, never use Wikipedia for anything. Since everybody can change it, it's useless.

by madez 12y ago

Also, never use Wikipedia for anything. Since everybody can change it, it's useless.

V-2 12y ago

Well, I certainly wouldn't use it without crosschecking facts ;)

nfoz 12y ago
Do you cross-check everything else? I'm sure it depends in what capacity the information is "used", right?
- sirsuki 12y ago
  Something I never understood. When referencing a "real" encyclopedia you have to include the revision number thus if information changes in later revisions your citation remains intact. Wikipedia is exactly the same. When you cite Wikipedia you should include the revision number so that if it changes (as it frequently does) you haven't lost the text referenced. Could higher change frequency provide higher mis-information? Sure but a "real" encyclopedia has the same problem (maybe at a smaller scale) So in either case you have to either pay someone to fact check (like most encyclopedia companies do and could easily be done for Wikipedia) and/or do the fact check yourself. The later being the core at Wikipedia culture^[citation needed].
  - V-2 12y ago
    Any real encyclopedias where hoaxes would not get corrected for years? See http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/04/15/the-great-wikipedia-hoax/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/04/... - it's been featured on the main page just a few days ago. The same article points out that the editors-to-articles ratio has been rapidly falling from 2007 to 2014 (it bounced back a little this year, but it's too early to say if it isn't just a fluke).
ikeboy 12y ago
Information that's either true or completely made up is usually true. So if they say "the population of X is Y", or something like that, I'll trust them.

minikites 12y ago

Wikipedia is actually pretty bad, try following up on any of the references. If they're web references, the chances of it being a 404 page are almost 100% in my experience. Not to mention the editors being almost all white men and the opaque process that limits most "non-male" topics: http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/wikipedia-college-classes-yale-brown/ http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/wikipedia-college-classes-... Wikipedia is basically infotainment, the Buzzfeed of encyclopedias. See also: Wikigroaning: http://www.somethingawful.com/news/wikigroaning/ http://www.somethingawful.com/news/wikigroaning/ > For example, the article called "Knight." Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the population. In this case, we'll go with "Jedi Knight." Open both of the links and compare the lengths of the two articles. Compare not only that, but how well concepts are explored, and the greater professionalism with which the longer article was likely created." Wikipedia is no substitute for a real subject encyclopedia.

blumkvist 12y ago
>Wikipedia is no substitute for a real subject encyclopedia. Who says it is? It's for quick pointers.
- minikites 12y ago
  A subject encyclopedia will have much better pointers, definitely real citations, often annotated citations. What "serious" purpose does Wikipedia serve, other than being a timely source for things that haven't made it into a subject encyclopedia yet?
  - blumkvist 12y ago
    The serious purpose of having a little (a lot) of everything in one place. For free. For everyone. In any language. A kid in India can hop from physiology, to psychology, to medicine, to anthropology, to geography, to history, to economics, to... Do you get the point? I guess we shoould just plug wikipedia off and stick a giant banner that says "Wikipedia is not sufficient for scientific inquiry, so we closed it. Go buy Thomson Web of Science." I'm sure Maadhav in India will be very happy and rest assured that no incomplete information is on the Internet.

notahacker 12y ago

Ironically, many pages of Wikipedia are useless because they're so difficult to permanently change...

noblethrasher 12y ago
Wikipedia + the talk pages is closer to an ideal encyclopedia. One of the major criticism of Wikipedia is that it preempts the possibility of having multiple encyclopedias, and thus multiple points of view. But, once you consider the talk pages, you not only restore the multiple points of view, but you also get to witness the contests between them. In that way, at least, this is better than having multiple encyclopedias.
- mwexler 12y ago
  Of course, another aspect of encyclopedias is that they organize a body of information; while the main page may force a structure of some kind, talk pages tend to go all over the place. But agreed that they add much needed facts and POVs beyond the one wikipedia "way" on the main page.
- mkhpalm 12y ago
  Agreed, but that implies that people haven't given up on trying to get facts or information into pages that are managed nefariously. To me it feels like the talk sections have been dying off. So many things at wikipedia have become advertorials.
- DanBC 12y ago
  My ideal encyclopedia does not have hundreds of thousands of words of discussion about the important differences between en dash, em dash, minus and hyphen. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8600342 Here's fifteen thousand words of discussion about en and em dashes and hyphens and minus signs. And at the end of that one discussion? No consensus. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_101#Hyphens_and_endashs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(poli... And this is about punctuation. Imagine what it's like on actually contentious issues - Balkans wars, various islands claimed by more than one territory. Etc.

VieElm 12y ago

Well if you end up with a vandalized wikipedia page maybe you end up misinformed. If you end up with wrong map data, maybe you end up lost or dead.