Collaborative Efforts to Enhance Physics Articles on Wikipedia

[Sojourner01]

Alright forumers, I've heard numerous complaints about the quality of http://en.wikipedia.org" physics articles - an opinion which I share. Far too often they're undetailed, far too technical, and just plain confusing.

So who better to rectify the situation than us? I'm looking for volunteers to go over to wikipedia and make a real effort to improve physics articles as a cohesive unit. For the moment, first port of call is my user page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Sojourner001/PF_Taskforce"

What say you, PFers?

 

[FUNKER]

I agree, but its going to take some work !

 

[cristo]

The problem with this suggestion is that Wikipedia can be amended at any time, by anyone. So, the effort that one puts into writing a physically correct page, can be undone by anyone the next day! For this reason, I'm not sure whether people will be willing to "waste" their time!

 

[JasonRox]

Why would you volunteer for wikipedia?

They have enough money to fix it themselves. Volunteer for something worthy, like something local in the community.

You have so many physics crackpots out there that it's hopeless. They will outnumber you like nothing.

 

[Sojourner01]

Wikipedia does not, contrary to popular belief, have a problem with vandals and crackpots. There are a great many admins roaming around whose main activity is reverting crap edits. By and large it works quite well - it's just that many pages are written by people whom, while their knowledge is top notch, their communication skills aren't the greatest and so things are frequently incomprehensible.

JasonRox, I think you've fundamentally misunderstood the concept of Wikipedia. 'Themselves' is us. That is, contributors. I won't even debate the 'worthiness' of the Wikimedia foundation.

 

[moose]

The problem with this suggestion is that Wikipedia can be amended at any time, by anyone. So, the effort that one puts into writing a physically correct page, can be undone by anyone the next day! For this reason, I'm not sure whether people will be willing to "waste" their time!

You can view the edit history and retrieve any information you had on there previously.

 

[Mk]

Wikipedia does not, contrary to popular belief, have a problem with vandals and crackpots. There are a great many admins roaming around whose main activity is reverting crap edits. By and large it works quite well - it's just that many pages are written by people whom, while their knowledge is top notch, their communication skills aren't the greatest and so things are frequently incomprehensible.

Although one may be nitpicky, the thinking community is great on Wikipedia. PF and Wikipedia are my favorite places on the internet hands down. They are very homely and you really get to know people if you want to. Often times I am surprised at how little there are. ~~~~

 

[JasonRox]

So, can I go on there and just delete everything?

 

[mattmns]

Yep, but you would probably be banned (your IP), and also everything you delete can be easily reverted back to how it was before.

 

[Mk]

Yep, but you would probably be banned (your IP), and also everything you delete can be easily reverted back to how it was before.

And actually pretty fast too, they have many users completely dedicated to doing only that. They have software installed on their computer and a hacked javascript viewing interface. Also, they've written plenty of antivandalism bots which run around the clock to restore blatant vandalism, such as page blanking.

 

[Moridin]

Good luck with that. In my opinion, it is a good solution to the wrong problem. The whole open source, any-one-can-edit-contribute-change system seems to be an incorrect way of doing such a large scale production with so many areas and people involved.

Don't get me wrong - I use Wikipedia to read about some of the old TV shows I never saw all the episodes off when I got nothing else to do. It may not be that super reliable on the events or cast members, but I do not really care. However, encompassing such as serious subject as science provides a bad contrast.

'Wikipedia - the frontier of science' just doesn't make much sense at all.

 

[ZapperZ]

So, can I go on there and just delete everything?

Instead of doing that, you could simply add some "intelligent nonsense" to an area of Wikipedia that is still empty. Try looking up "angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy". I can easily help you write something that "appears" to be correct.

If Alan Sokal can do it for Social Text, we can certainly do it for Wikipedia!

:)

Zz.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

Instead of doing that, you could simply add some "intelligent nonsense" to an area of Wikipedia that is still empty. Try looking up "angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy". I can easily help you write something that "appears" to be correct.

If Alan Sokal can do it for Social Text, we can certainly do it for Wikipedia!

:)

Zz.

Zapper, tut tut, do they not already have enough graffiti artists on Wiki, just because it's pseudo-intelectual doesn't make it right

I think it's a grand idea personally, and you could probably copy and paste reams of stuff here, and it uses latex, just so long as your sure to make it known who did the groundwork and get their permission.

 

[Sojourner01]

What wikipedia tends to amount to in science articles is peer-review. As long as the population of experts is high enough in a particular area, every change is intensely scrutinised by both experts and students. The main problem it has is not enough of both in many areas. Most of the articles are technically accurate, but very, very confusing. The main thing they need is reworking to be more accessible.

 

[DM]

Far too often they're undetailed, far too technical, and just plain confusing.

They can't physically improve the like of Physics and Maths related articles. They obviously need someone that is deemed competent enough to break down the material into a much more readable and learning content.

Are they personally going to hire a Physics/Maths teacher to do that? Who's going to finance this?

 

[ZapperZ]

What wikipedia tends to amount to in science articles is peer-review.

You are kidding, right?

If you are not, then do you know what process a manuscript has to go through in getting published in a peer-reviewed journal? If you do, then show me clearly how this and wikipedia "tend" to amount to the same thing.

As long as the population of experts is high enough in a particular area, every change is intensely scrutinised by both experts and students. The main problem it has is not enough of both in many areas. Most of the articles are technically accurate, but very, very confusing. The main thing they need is reworking to be more accessible.

In other words, to dumb it down so that the general public can understand it. And this "tends" to be like peer-reviewed journals? Really now!

Zz.

 

[Sojourner01]

Congratulations for totally misinterpreting my meaning.

Wikipedia article oversight is, at its most basic, a similar principle to peer review - in that a number of experts get the chance to scrutinise what is written. If it was a perfect system there would be enough experts contributing that an article reaches an ideal state very quickly. The differences are twofold - firstly, that there are almost always not enough experts to make this work as it should, and secondly - though this is a positive - that articles are never 'finished'. There is always the option for improvement.

Are they personally going to hire a Physics/Maths teacher to do that? Who's going to finance this?

You really aren't 'getting' this. Wikipedia is open-source and volunteer-driven. If you want to be a critic, feel free to come up with a better, more popular source for general information, then I'll believe your criticisms have some merit.

In other words, to dumb it down so that the general public can understand it. And this "tends" to be like peer-reviewed journals? Really now!

Same response. In case this had passed you by, that is the point of an encyclopaedia.

I acknowledge that in the statement about peer review what I said was not what i meant, but I think my meaning should have been obvious to any half-intelligent person without a chip on their shoulder.

 

[ZapperZ]

Congratulations for totally misinterpreting my meaning.

Wikipedia article oversight is, at its most basic, a similar principle to peer review - in that a number of experts get the chance to scrutinise what is written. If it was a perfect system there would be enough experts contributing that an article reaches an ideal state very quickly. The differences are twofold - firstly, that there are almost always not enough experts to make this work as it should, and secondly - though this is a positive - that articles are never 'finished'. There is always the option for improvement.

Same response. In case this had passed you by, that is the point of an encyclopaedia.

I acknowledge that in the statement about peer review what I said was not what i meant, but I think my meaning should have been obvious to any half-intelligent person without a chip on their shoulder.

No, it is NOT the same. For example, how do you think a journal selects the referees to "scrutinize" the submitted manuscript? This process is not even remotely similar to how it is done in Wikipedia. How much of a credential background do you think it takes to be the ones to "scrutinize" something? Who gets to decide what goes in and what goes out? What do you do when there's a dispute among the "experts"?

I put it to you that the way it is run right now, it has no similarity at all with a peer-review journal. Like I said, I could EASILY do an Alan Sokal to Wikipedia and no one would be the wiser.

It is because of this that there are now efforts by various groups to have an online encyclopedia that does NOT run the way Wikipedia does, but in fact requires experts with credentials in particular areas to monitor such posts. The division of Condensed Matter Physics of the APS is going to start its own online wiki encyclopedia. I'll give you one guess if you think they'll do it the way Wikipedia works.

Now where in here did I misrepresented your meaning?

Zz.

 

[arildno]

Remember, Sojourner:
Those who know know, those who don't know, don't know.
It is as simple, unanarchistic as that.

 

[Chi Meson]

It's my opinion that "peer-review," with respect to scientific articles, is a very specific process, and it is not at all what happens with Wikipedia. To call the "wiki" process "peer-review" might sound correct (by definitions of the individual words) but it is actually not correct.

That being said, I have to agree with the premise of Sojourner's OP that we at PF could do something to straighten out some of the posts (I've had the same though myself). But here's the problem as I see it:

Articles on simple matters such as gravity, and electrostatic attraction seem to be rewritten monthly, if not weekly. There is, for example, no shred of the edit on "the centrifugal effect" I posted about 2 years ago. The current artlcle (at least the article I last looked at) doesn't really say anything different, someone else just thought they could say the same thing better.

Articles on more profound matters such as Special and General Relativity and quantum suffer even more edits, including those that confuse, or even worse, add their own private "insights" to the matter.

If PF were to take on the oversight of the physics articles, it would amount to a policing of a certain list of articles. Perhaps individuals among us could choose to "own" a certain article. This is contrary to the "wiki" philosophy, and also sets up a competition between the others who have chosen to own the same article. My short stint of "owning" the centripetal/centrifugal page two years ago lasted about a week before I got very tired of it.

 

[-Job-]

I put it to you that the way it is run right now, it has no similarity at all with a peer-review journal. Like I said, I could EASILY do an Alan Sokal to Wikipedia and no one would be the wiser.

Zz.

Why don't you give it a shot then. It would be a great way to make your point. We can see how long it takes for Wikis to identify/correct it. It might be a learning experience for everyone.

 

[DM]

You really aren't 'getting' this. Wikipedia is open-source and volunteer-driven. If you want to be a critic, feel free to come up with a better, more popular source for general information, then I'll believe your criticisms have some merit.

Tell me something I don't know!

 

[ZapperZ]

Why don't you give it a shot then. It would be a great way to make your point. We can see how long it takes for Wikis to identify/correct it. It might be a learning experience for everyone.

But it HAS been done already. All that brouhaha about someone distorting information in Wikipedia is well know and is a fact.

I really do not intend to do that because it is a mean-spirited thing to do, especially if someone relies on such information. But I CAN, and it HAS been done. That's the whole point of it.

Zz.

 

[Moonbear]

What wikipedia tends to amount to in science articles is peer-review. As long as the population of experts is high enough in a particular area, every change is intensely scrutinised by both experts and students. The main problem it has is not enough of both in many areas. Most of the articles are technically accurate, but very, very confusing. The main thing they need is reworking to be more accessible.

I'm going to agree with Zz here, that wiki is not at all like peer review. In peer review, you have an expert in a very specific field writing an article, it is then reviewed by his/her peers in that field, i.e., also with very specific knowledge to catch errors, then an editor goes through those reviews to further check that they are consistent with the goals of the journal, and if the reviews are too different, can choose to send it to more experts for review to see if there is consensus, then it is sent back to the original writer to correct those errors, if they are correctable. If the errors are too egregious, as is the case in some wiki articles, it is simply rejected and nobody else ever sees it.

In wikipedia, the errors are visible to everyone, even those with no expertise, until corrected.

You can view the edit history and retrieve any information you had on there previously.

And how many times are you going to do this before you get sick and tired of it? If you work really hard to make something comprehensible to the general public and still retain accuracy, and people who know less than you can keep coming in and meddling and making it worse again, are you really going to go back day after day after day just to keep reverting it back to your original text? I sure wouldn't bother. If I'm going to put that much effort into writing something clear and accurate for a novice, I'll write a textbook chapter.

And, if that's the type of information you want, that's where it can be found...in textbooks. For higher level information, there are edited, peer-reviewed books containing collections of related review articles as well that are good starting places to get an overview of a field. It takes months to years to write those, going back and forth between authors, editors, and peer-reviewers, but when it's done, it's printed in permanent form. Why would you do all that work only to have someone with an overinflated ego think they can do better than the experts and start changing things? Or worse, to keep having them insert their two cents in while you're trying to make your own revisions?

I think if you're looking for some tidbit of trivia, wikipedia is as good a place as any to start, but if you're looking to learn something serious, get a textbook or take a class.

 

[Danger]

The owner of Wikipedia has just announced that he is starting a new site in competition to the old one. This will be contributed to by experts only, and will be peer-reviewed. No more guesswork.

 

[arildno]

It should be said that wikipedia is quite accurate on non-controversial issues of a non-difficult type. For example in biographies of long forgotten individuals like Hannibal Sehested.

 

[Evo]

The owner of Wikipedia has just announced that he is starting a new site in competition to the old one. This will be contributed to by experts only, and will be peer-reviewed. No more guesswork.

Actually, it's a fight between the original developers. https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=132272

 

[Danger]

Well, hi Sweetie. Long time, no read.
I have actually never seen the link that you provided. What I was referring to was on either CTV Hello Canada or How Stuff Works. It is to be a totally new site, with no link to the current one. (Well, that's as of yesterday morning; who knows about now... )

 

[slugcountry]

Good luck with that. In my opinion, it is a good solution to the wrong problem. The whole open source, any-one-can-edit-contribute-change system seems to be an incorrect way of doing such a large scale production with so many areas and people involved.

Don't get me wrong - I use Wikipedia to read about some of the old TV shows I never saw all the episodes off when I got nothing else to do. It may not be that super reliable on the events or cast members, but I do not really care. However, encompassing such as serious subject as science provides a bad contrast.

'Wikipedia - the frontier of science' just doesn't make much sense at all.

Wikipedia is the first place I go when i need to research something - whether it is something personal or something for school. Why? Because 9 times out of 10 I'll find a huge wealth of useful information on the subject in question along with well cited (and usually very reputable) sources.

People bash it because they simply don't understand a damn thing about it and just go with what they hear through the media or word of mouth or whatever - by and large the majority of criticism leveled against wiki is completely unwarranted.

 

[ZapperZ]

Wikipedia is the first place I go when i need to research something - whether it is something personal or something for school. Why? Because 9 times out of 10 I'll find a huge wealth of useful information on the subject in question along with well cited (and usually very reputable) sources.

People bash it because they simply don't understand a damn thing about it and just go with what they hear through the media or word of mouth or whatever - by and large the majority of criticism leveled against wiki is completely unwarranted.

Then may you never have to depend on the information you get from the Accelerator Physics topic, or even UV photoemisson, because you'll be up the creek if you rely on it.

Zz.

 

[Moonbear]

Wikipedia is the first place I go when i need to research something - whether it is something personal or something for school. Why? Because 9 times out of 10 I'll find a huge wealth of useful information on the subject in question along with well cited (and usually very reputable) sources.

If it's a new subject for you (i.e., research for school), how do you know the sources are reputable or that the information is accurate? That's the problem. And, those of us who do know better see time and again the misinformation and common misconceptions that continue to be spread on that site.

 

[trajan22]

Ive been reading for a long time about how wikipedia is the devil and frankly its become annoying. Wikipedia is the easiest way the general public has to get information regarding most subjects. Last time I checked most people don't look up uvphoto emmisions and other very detailed aspects of physics. Generally people are looking for general information on a subject and for that I think wikipedia is a great thing. As far as detailed information goes, wikipedia isn't the greatest but its the best we got for now.

 

[Evo]

I use wikipedia a lot for general information, but KNOWING that the information could be wrong and to verify it before I rely on it.

I'm one of those that have found pages that were defaced by crackpots. The general public isn't able to tell truth from crackpottery. There are very few subjects that I am able to tell the difference in. So if I've found defaced pages, I can only imagine how widespread it is.

You cannot trust any information you find on wikipedia. That's a FACT. Yes, they try to police it, but it's an impossible task. There are just too many crackpots out there.

 

[light_bulb]

some things will never change so why not treat it like a real encyclopedia, lock agreed upon wikis and review them every ten years or so. i understand that no one wants everything in one place and you'd want to flag hits to
"forbidden" infomation but that's how you play go fish now. besides the real danger is already at the university. save a tree, except for schools, book stores and old editions it's going to be print on demand anyway.

 

[Evo]

some things will never change so why not treat it like a real encyclopedia, lock agreed upon wikis and review them every ten years or so. i understand that no one wants everything in one place and you'd want to flag hits to
"forbidden" infomation but that's how you play go fish now. besides the real danger is already at the university. save a tree, except for schools, book stores and old editions it's going to be print on demand anyway.

A real encyclopedia is looked over by experts in the subject, and once they print their opinion, it is not changed.

Wkipedia, however is changed consistantly and without the agreement of others.

 

[ZapperZ]

Ive been reading for a long time about how wikipedia is the devil and frankly its become annoying. Wikipedia is the easiest way the general public has to get information regarding most subjects. Last time I checked most people don't look up uvphoto emmisions and other very detailed aspects of physics. Generally people are looking for general information on a subject and for that I think wikipedia is a great thing. As far as detailed information goes, wikipedia isn't the greatest but its the best we got for now.

But listen to yourself here. You're saying "Oh yeah, on some topic, it is OK for it to go off kilter, as long as in other "general information", they are fine".

I am glad that you are able to draw such a distinct line between what should be accurate, and what is acceptable for it to go wrong. I can't. And the fact that it can happen draws into question the INTEGRITY of the whole thing. I cannot fathom how you can accept a source that is THAT flaky! Have we lowered our standards THAT low?

Zz.

 

[Crosson]

No one has pointed out that these "experts" that write encyclopedias always keep distant from the readers, they are careful not to sound too human.

What I like most about wikipedia is the way that it avoids pompous "expert" styles of writing, and I feel similarly about many open-source projects.

The math/phys articles are really just a convenient way to be exposed to new topics, the way that each paragraph is full of live links. And every science page has links to source materials on the bottom, many of which are print titles.

Why would it matter so much if someone got the wrong idea from wikipedia?

 

[ZapperZ]

Why would it matter so much if someone got the wrong idea from wikipedia?

I think that phrase should be Wikipedia's logo.

Zz.

 

[Sojourner01]

Wikipedia is most useful as a gateway - get the general rundown and use it as a point of contact for other materials. This is why editors harp on about references so much - because for anything important, it needs to be backed up by good books and journals.

I don't know how many different ways I can express my opinion. The idea behind the system is that the community plugs away at a system that is in a state of flux. The net effect is that articles tend to improve. Where this system fails is that there is insufficient contribution by people in the know and thus things slip through. As they do with most things, academics have gotten on their high horse instead of getting stuck in and doing something about it.

Nobody denies that wikipedia is weak as a research source - very weak indeed. For casual information and as a gateway, however, it has eminent potential to be very good indeed within its bounds. It will only get that way if people whose knowledge is worth a damn contribute.

 

[ZapperZ]

Wikipedia is most useful as a gateway - get the general rundown and use it as a point of contact for other materials. This is why editors harp on about references so much - because for anything important, it needs to be backed up by good books and journals.

I don't know how many different ways I can express my opinion. The idea behind the system is that the community plugs away at a system that is in a state of flux. The net effect is that articles tend to improve. Where this system fails is that there is insufficient contribution by people in the know and thus things slip through. As they do with most things, academics have gotten on their high horse instead of getting stuck in and doing something about it.

Nobody denies that wikipedia is weak as a research source - very weak indeed. For casual information and as a gateway, however, it has eminent potential to be very good indeed within its bounds. It will only get that way if people whose knowledge is worth a damn contribute.

And why would they want to do that?!

I know of a couple of people at work who use Wikipedia as a quick "gateway". When I asked one of them if he would consider contributing to it, his reply was "why would I want to do that?!" And this comes from someone who uses it!

You also ignore the fact that the "community" does NOT use Wikipedia, and so, has almost no vested interest in it. The Nature survey reveals that barely 10% of scientists use it extensively. So there is no "high horse" to get off, because most do not even care or know it exist. So essentially, you're asking people to put effort into something that is worth nothing to them. Hello? What am I missing here?

Community service? I've done plenty and not only are they more effective, I also get credit (or blame) for it AND, no one can come in and spoil things later. You referee for a journal, and you can use that as one of your professional accomplishments. Write an entry for Wikipedia? Not only does it not count, I'd be too embarrass to even include that!

Edit: P.S. In case people want to know, I have ZERO problem with whoever wants to "improve" the science entries in Wikipedia. If you think it will work, more power to you. I do, however, have a problem with people thinking that the process is similar, or heaven forbid, "tends" to be like "peer-review". It is NOTHING like that, and that was my main objection.

Zz.

 

[Astronuc]

The principal problem with Wikipedia is lack of 'quality control', hence less than complete reliability or credibility. I have much the thoughts as those expressed by Zz, Evo and Moonbear.

On Wikipedias MainPage - "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That does not instill confidence. One does not know who writes a specific article.

And then on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction it states "Don't be afraid to edit—anyone can edit almost any page, and we encourage you to be bold!" I'd rather Wikipedia encourage people to be 'correct'.

In a true peer reviewed journal or encyclopedia, the people (peers) doing the review are 'experts' who have done similar work or have similar experience to those writing articles/papers which are being reviewed. Pick any journal and look at the editorial board and list of reviewers. Most have decades of experience and are themselves published (and those articles have been peer-reviewed by more senior experts). This simply is not necessarily the case at Wikipedia. Although the situation may be improving, it still has a long way to go.

I use Wikipedia as a start, and it helps if a particular article references other non-Wiki sources. But, I still see a number of articles without proper reference, and I still see occassional articles locked because of vandalism (particularly those of sensitive political or historical nature).

As ZapperZ has experienced, I have found occassional technical articles that contain wrong information.

Why would it matter so much if someone got the wrong idea from wikipedia?

Because the point of sharing information is that the information is 'correct'.

While making Wikipedia a more realiable source is a laudable goal, the only way to change that is for Wikipedia to make a structural change that restricts or controls the contribution of articles. And then all articles have to be subjected to rigorous review.

 

[Moonbear]

Yes, they try to police it, but it's an impossible task. There are just too many crackpots out there.

And, there are just too many pages to police. They can't go out daily and read every page thoroughly to make sure nobody has changed something important.

some things will never change so why not treat it like a real encyclopedia, lock agreed upon wikis and review them every ten years or so. i understand that no one wants everything in one place and you'd want to flag hits to
"forbidden" infomation but that's how you play go fish now.

If someone did that, it would be an encyclopedia, not a wiki. That's the entire flaw, that they won't lock it after the experts agree upon an entry.

besides the real danger is already at the university. save a tree, except for schools, book stores and old editions it's going to be print on demand anyway.

Huh? Do you know what people do with electronic textbooks to make them readable? They print them. So, have the publisher print them or the user print them, what's the difference? I have no problem with writing textbooks in an electronic format, though, if it saves some people from using paper, and they can read and study from it (I can't, I need it in print). That's not the complaint here. The complaint is that if you put effort into getting correct information on a page, any idiot can come in at any time and "be bold" and change it, and not just "vandalism" but subtle changes that they think make it sound better but are not technically correct. You can't cite it as a source, the way you can an encyclopedia, because tomorrow it might be entirely different. Most people have better things to do with their time than do something as futile as editing a source that anyone else can come in and write over again without any credentials.

 

[MeJennifer]

Well, truth is not determined by democracy, with that in mind, I see a real problem with the way Wikipedia works.

But on the other hand, I think that the idea to provide non-commerial information available to everyone, for free, should not in the least be followed by those who "copyright" the results of sub-atomic and cosmological experiments. Ironically HTTP and the WWW originated from the need to share sub-atomic experiments and research.

For instance a search on www.cern.ch (including CERN's intranet) to a simple term like "fermion" gives zero results.

 

[physics girl phd]

What wikipedia tends to amount to... is peer-review.

This was an excellent way of stating it... therefore I think the original post request was a call for us to all get out and start "reviewing" to make topics more accessible/reliable. However, the peers on Wiki are the general community (not necessarily the scientific one) so this is therefore "iffy"... as people state, and do we want to hire a huge team of professional science educators to fill the role? Really, I think not... professional educators know that there are lots better resources out there for learning and developing, and take wiki as it is... a quick reference that should ALWAYS be verified by something ACTUALLY published... like a textbook... since wikis on science topics seem generally textbooky in nature and therefore should be able to be verified by the user.

This said... I've generally found that the few wiki articles I was involved with on (with my husband, a sociologist) took things that were EXTREMELY bad ("stubs")... and made them much better by an almost complete replacement (a virtually complete redo and expansion, but not "blanking"). They have therefore remained intact and virtually unchanged (I checked recently in the history files). HOWEVER... These were biographical sketches that the individuals being described (some famous sociologists he knew) WANTED a new and improved wiki. Vandalism has occurred on the sites, but it was quickly caught by bots or by the fact that these individuals occassionally police the articles themselves (or have a grad student do this ).

 

[dontdisturbmycircles]

Actually, it's a fight between the original developers. https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=132272

This Citizendium thing looks like a really good idea. Hopefully it catches on and is successful.

 

[trajan22]

"But listen to yourself here. You're saying "Oh yeah, on some topic, it is OK for it to go off kilter, as long as in other "general information", they are fine".

I am glad that you are able to draw such a distinct line between what should be accurate, and what is acceptable for it to go wrong. I can't. And the fact that it can happen draws into question the INTEGRITY of the whole thing. I cannot fathom how you can accept a source that is THAT flaky! Have we lowered our standards THAT low?

Zz."
I was not trying to imply that it is ok that these articles are flawed, I agree entirely that these "crackpot articles" should be removed or edited and that it is unacceptable. However, I am trying to say that because most people do not access these advanced articles they only have a minimal negative impact. No, wikipedia is not perfect by any means but thus far most all the articles that I have used on it have been reliable. I know this because it agrees with my textbooks. I have not run across articles written by "crackpots" (at least that I know of) but I generally only use wikipedia as either a jump point to further research or as a quick reference point.

(a quick question but how do you get the quotes to come up in a separate box)

 

[Moonbear]

(a quick question but how do you get the quotes to come up in a separate box)

Click the button that says "quote."

 

[ZapperZ]

I was not trying to imply that it is ok that these articles are flawed, I agree entirely that these "crackpot articles" should be removed or edited and that it is unacceptable. However, I am trying to say that because most people do not access these advanced articles they only have a minimal negative impact. No, wikipedia is not perfect by any means but thus far most all the articles that I have used on it have been reliable. I know this because it agrees with my textbooks. I have not run across articles written by "crackpots" (at least that I know of) but I generally only use wikipedia as either a jump point to further research or as a quick reference point.

Here's the conclusion I get from your post:

1. Wikipedia content can be flawed.

2. Getting flawed information is better than getting no information. (!)

3. Even when I know that the information can be flawed, and changed at any time, I still trust the content.

When you put it THAT way, the only thing that I can do is throw my hands up in the air and walk away. If you don't care about the integrity of your source of information, why should I?

Zz.

 

[slugcountry]

well the day wikipedia results in anything less than an A paper because of my sources i'll agree that it is flawed ... honestly have you guys actually tried to use it as a serious research tool?

Someone really hit the nail on the head when they said it was a gateway... to good sources.

Here is a good example I just found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubler-Ross_model

notice the brief overview followed by links to her essays as well as external more in-depth analysis.

what more could you ask for?

edit: I WILL say that it is probably a bad place to research fringe topics - er by fringe I mean cutting edge new information since it is evolving and changing at a tremendous rate (the new information that is).

 

[trajan22]

You are clearly misinterpreting my posts just as you have many of the others on this thread. You have no desire to listen to what people say and are simply repeating yourself. I understand I won't change your opinion or anyone elses so why bother trying...