Recently this website has turned up on a lot of my google searches

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the reliability and credibility of the website About.com, particularly in comparison to Wikipedia and other sources of information. Participants express their experiences and opinions regarding the quality of content on About.com, especially in the context of health, nutrition, and general knowledge.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant expresses concern about the reliability of information on About.com, questioning whether it is comparable to Wikipedia and suggesting that it may be driven by advertising revenue.
  • Another participant notes that much of the content on About.com seems to quote Wikipedia articles.
  • A participant recalls using About.com in the past but found it inferior to Wikipedia and Google, citing issues with misleading sponsored links and ads.
  • Some participants find the articles on About.com to be generally shallow and not adequately informative.
  • Another viewpoint suggests that while some articles may be decent, there are usually better sources available.
  • One participant mentions that About.com appears to have a high volume of ads and often provides minimal content, which detracts from its credibility.
  • A participant reflects on the historical context of About.com, noting its prominence before the rise of Wikipedia but expressing a lack of interest in returning to it due to its current state.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally express skepticism about the reliability of About.com, with multiple competing views on its quality compared to Wikipedia and other sources. The discussion remains unresolved regarding the overall credibility of the site.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference their personal experiences and perceptions, which may vary widely. There is mention of the site's ad-laden layout and its historical context, but no consensus on its current reliability or value as a source of information.

ehrenfest
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Recently this website has turned up on a lot of my google searches. They have articles about almost everything under the sun: health, technology, parenting, entertainment, ... Here is how they describe themselves:
About.com is an online neighborhood of hundreds of helpful experts, eager to share their wealth of knowledge with visitors.

I am particularly interested in nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices and about.com keeps turning when I try to learn about these things from the internet. For some random recent examples, I found some info on http://heartburn.about.com/cs/notdiagnosedyet/a/050503.htm" there that would be pretty helpful if I can trust it. So, I am trying to gauge how reliable the information they provide is. For instance, I am trying to figure out how it compares to Wikipedia. Is it just like Wikipedia except with restrictions on the article-writers? They claim that the people writing their articles, called "guides", are experts benevolently interested in helping people. That seems possible and it would be really cool if it were true, but I am pretty wary of claims like that. The devils advocate in me says that about.com could just be a lor of business people trying to make money off advertising revenue. I couldn't find whether it was nonprofit or not.

Anyway, what do people make of this website? In general, when you look for advice about random encyclopedic knowledge about things such as food, nutrition, historical facts, diseases, government, technology, on the internet how do you judge the credibility of the site?
 
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Most of what I've seen, they just quote Wiki articles.
 


I don't like it much and never used it even though it shows up often in google.
 


Evo said:
Most of what I've seen, they just quote Wiki articles.

I remember using about.com last century before there was a wikipedia. I used it to learn about playing musical instruments and various sports. It was not free to edit, but instead employed "experts." Thinking back, I remember that even back then it had a high ratio of misleading sponsored links and pop-up ads, so I wasn't attached once something better came along.

Anyway, what do people make of this website?

In my opinion, it is vastly inferior to google + wikipedia, basically an over-commercialized relic of the past. If you don't mind navigating the sites ad-laden layout, then it might be more reliable then a bad Wikipedia page, but if the Wiki page is bad then I go to primary sources.
 


ehrenfest said:
Recently this website has turned up on a lot of my google searches. ...

Anyway, what do people make of this website?

Not much really. I find it generally shallower as a source. And some of the about's just not adequately treating what I was looking for.

When I get Google hit's to it, I look elsewhere is my learned behavior.
 


Some of their articles are decent, and some of them aren't. In general, there are usually better sources.
 


Evo said:
Most of what I've seen, they just quote Wiki articles.

That's been my experience too, or else they just run an ad for some product. I think they just get a lot of google hits because they have a stub of an article (sometimes no more than a sentence) and an ad for about every topic you can think of, but it doesn't make it a good source.
 


Like Crosson about.com was the place for articles and information before wiki. I rarely go back and it seems spammy and ad ridden now.
 


Thanks for your comments everyone! These facts about the ancient historical era before Wikipedia are fascinating. :-p
 

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