Wikipedia and Google?

cristo

No; not if it's wrong, and not for someone who is new to a field and learning. When I was at school a teacher gave me this spelling of the word tomorrow: "tommorrow". So, I thought, the teacher's right, so I'll listen to her. A while later it was pointed out to me that she was incorrect, however I had got into the habit of spelling it incorrectly, and i messed up the spelling of that word for a long time afterwards.

Ok, maybe that's a bad example, but my point it that if you're learning from a source that may be incorrect, it could be disastrous to your learning, not to mention being a rather large waste of time!

Quaoar

Question: How would you have spelled the word had your teacher not told you?

cristo

I'd probably have looked it up in the dictionary, but since my teacher was there, I asked her-- you do presume that a teacher knows the answer to your questions, especially at a young age, and if they don't, then would look up the answer themselves.

Anyway, I'm not sure what your point is. My point is that if you presume that wiki is correct, then you will be in for a big suprise-- but not just in a trivial spelling of a word (like in my example). The parts of wiki that are wrong will tend not to be simple articles, but will be the more advanced articles (since there aren't as many capable of writing/checking them!) Therefore, a layperson reading these may think "yea, that makes sense", when it's really incorrect.

[As an aside, I'm sure there's been a recent thread on this subject]

ZapperZ

Read the title of this thread.

No, it isn't, especially when the person reading it isn't AWARE that all he/she is getting is at the superficial level. I've seen WAY too many people use wikipedia like a bible, AND even using it for college term papers and homework, so much so that many schools now have banned from using it as a reference!

Why not? I certainly moved with my books! And if earlier generations can certainly do that, why is the present-day generation THAT WIMPY? Have we simply settled for mediocrity instead of first-rate information? Do we simply not care anymore about the QUALITY of information that we get? Do we only need information in the form of sound-bites for people who can't sit down and properly digest the information they are getting?

I'm sorry, I don't buy this, and I certainly would not care to lower such standards just so we can give things out for "free". Furthermore, this is NOT a thread on the "merits" of Wikipedia. We have had several of those already, and you're welcome to join those and resurrect them from the dead. The OP had a very specific question regarding "schooling" using stuff that one finds on the internet. Your original contention that one can distinguish between valid and garbage information simply based on the availability of citation is STILL clearly wrong.

Zz.

Quaoar

There has been a recent thread on the subject, but I didn't really actively participate.

My point is that there are many on this forum who seem to be completely unfamiliar with Wikipedia in general and like to make blanket comments to prove a point. There's no disputing: The Internet isn't the most authoritative resource out there. However, it's *a* resource, and its one that's free and easy to access.

ZapperZ

No one is disputing that. It is a resource of a lot of crap. Free crap.

Zz.

Quaoar

The title is "Wikipedia and Google?" Tell me what I'm missing here.

That was absolutely not my contention, you read a single sentence and extrapolated my contention without any evidence. I followed up with saying that one needs to read the cited work to gauge credibility. Clearly you are letting your animosity towards Wikipedia get in the way of your judgment.

You seem to be a master at reading into things I didn't say and ignoring things I did say, so I'm done with this conversation. No use arguing with those who refuse to listen.

cristo

Huh? I use wikipedia, but only for things that aren't important. It's got an article about pretty much everything you could possibly want. However, wiki is not where I would go to learn technical subjects, since I know that there's a high probabilty that there will be mistakes. I use books or lecture notes freely available on university websites.

So, I've not made a blanket comment to make a point, but I have simply stated (what is more or less) a fact: wiki should not be used as a source of schooling.

Quaoar

And I disagree, I think it can be used as a source of schooling if other options are not readily available. Besides, the consensus seems to be that its pretty accurate for broad low-level topics, which is where I think it is the most useful.

ZapperZ

In message #7, you quote JUST this part of my post:

And this is ALL that you answered:

That's it! You answered my question simply by using the fact that an article must have citations. Period.

Only later on when I challenged the rational of that kind of a response did you then say that one ALSO has to read the citations, to which I then addressed the fallacy of such a thing, considering that in many cases, those citations cite other published papers and even textbooks! Why not go directly there in the first place?

Zz.

Quaoar

Because you were ignoring the fact that there could even be citations. I didn't feel it necessary to explain that they have to be good citations, that should have been obvious from the word "proper".

ZapperZ

"properly cited" doesn't say anything about the article itself. There are plenty of crackpot websites that "properly cited" many physics papers. You somehow seem to ONLY think that I can't read and "ignoring the fact that" it is what you WROTE that does not correspond to what you mean!

Zz.

Quaoar

Sure it does, if you read the citations, which you SHOULD do. You seem to think I meant "proper" as in the article writer successfully linked to another page. I mean proper as in the citation is relevant and supports the argument of the article.

What I wrote is exactly what I mean. You're too stubborn to understand that you simply misinterpreted what I wrote.

ZapperZ

Oy vey. And all the others that also questioned your insistence of using Wikipedia in the way you "intended" are also "stubborn" and didn't interpret you correctly? As I recall, the discussion here is MORE than just "properly cited". For some odd reason, you ignored the OP original premise.

Besides, would you like to, for example, check the Wikipedia page on "Photoemission Spectroscopy" and tell me if that page would qualify as having "properly cited" citations?

Again, I can easily show you many crackpot webpages that used "relevant citations" to support their argument. Just go to Crank Dot Net if you don't believe me. You want these people who, by your own arguments, do not have access to such journals and texts, to do their own research on things they can't get access to. Yet, you argued to let them have even wrong and superficial information, which means that they don't have to care about those "citations". So on the one hand, it is OK for them to have such superficial and wrong info. But on the other hand, you insist that they have to check the validity of that info by digging into those citations. What happened to the virtues of having even 50% wrong info that you were selling just a few minutes ago?

Zz.

Quaoar

Oy vey yourself. Go back and read what I read, I'm through arguing.

ZapperZ

When have I heard that one before?

And oh, oh, here's a good one! Check out Wikipedia's "Particle Accelerator" page. It is "properly cited", I'm sure! So can someone go through ALL of those citations and find for me, oh, let's make it easy, 2 glaring errors?

Zz.

kdinser

If I know absolutely nothing about a topic, I go to wiki to learn the vocabulary. Then, depending on how much I need to know and how important my understanding is, I'll look for other websites using the vocabulary that I was able to get from wiki sites. As anyone with any web experience will tell you, knowing the vocabulary is the most important thing when it comes to good searching practices.

Bottom line to me is, wiki is useful for a lay person to get the very most basic under standing about a subject, and I wouldn't trust it at all for anything past first year or 1.5 year college. Even then, I would look for other collaboration before I used it as a source.