[QUOTE=luck_or_loss;21332998]is something wrong with that image? is it inaccurate?[/QUOTE]
You wouldn't know.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;21332983][img]http://www.facepunch.com/image.php?u=283806&dateline=1271098695[/img]
This man got his avatar from [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki-sball.png][u]Wikipedia[/u][/url]. The image is featured on the page for [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowballing (sexual practice)][u]Snowballing[/u][/url].[/QUOTE]
Mole.
It's a valid concern if you're dealing with something like politics, but otherwise it's greatly exaggerated.
Wikipedia's biggest problem is its tendency to bury the basic information between walls of trivial information that you generally wouldn't need to know rather than starting with a basic description and getting more detailed over time.
I remember I had to look through the article on some device called a Blue Box, I couldn't even figure out what it was supposed to do until I looked through earlier edits.
[url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm[/url]
Nature (the most reputable science journal in the world) published a study that says Wikipedia is comparable in accuracy to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Even if it wasn't, all you have to do is check the sources that are cited. Your teacher is dumb
[QUOTE=TH89;21333582][URL]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm[/URL]
Nature (the most reputable science journal in the world) published a study that says Wikipedia is comparable in accuracy to the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Even if it wasn't, all you have to do is check the sources that are cited. Your teacher is dumb[/QUOTE]
THANK YOU!
No one seems to ever notice the fucking citations and sources and just go "WIKIPEDIA SUCKS"
Teachers only say that so students will stop using it as an alternative to actual research, but it never works.
I don't think teachers have a problem with the reliability of Wikipedia on the whole, just the fact that kids tend to copy and paste from it without reading what they have copied.
Wikipedia is very accurate. The guys that run the site do their research, and they don't let just anything stay on the site. Just test it, change something on a page to something like "hairy dirty ballsacks", when it should say "born in 1984", and see how long it lasts. It'll probably be corrected withing minutes.
As wise man once said: "Wikipedia is a great place to start a research, but a horrible place to end".
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_biography_controversy[/url] ~ Four months.
But I agree, Wikipedia is a fantastic site that should only be used as an index for any research topic. (see: above)
Wikipedia as suggested before is a good place to start but your research should really only be done with academic journals and books as they are non-changeable and usually regarded as accurate.
if you must use anything, use the cited links at the bottom, thats they way round it.
In 9th grade, one of my classes went to the schools library, and the librarian had a whole presentation set up to tell us that you shouldn't trust website that end with .com because they are all trying to sell stuff and that websites ending with .info are much more reliable.
WHAT THE FUCK?
I almost broke my nose facepalming
Also said that wikipedia is the devils work and that everything is wrong and only inbred retards from alabama write the articles.
Well, that's what it sounded like.
None of my teachers let us use it as a source. So I find websites that are about the topic, cite them and use them, then use wikipedia. If you are using it for a report on something, and you don't notice something someone edited like "Abraham Lincoln was born in 1997", then you don't know enough about the topic. I use it as a last source to understand it more... not as my main source,
I didn't know it as against Wikipedia to put videos under the references area. I put a video supporting this accident of an aircraft on the Citation 2 article, it was removed in under 5 minutes and I got a PM stating it was against the rules and was removed. I don't even have an account. They didn't ban me, because I do edit things truthfully and it wasn't anything harmful or intentionally wrong.
Teachers tell you its inaccurate because you basically don't need to do any work if you use it.
[QUOTE=Yurgenst;21334868]Teachers tell you its inaccurate because you basically don't need to do any work if you use it.[/QUOTE]
The first page of Google isn't that much more work
That's what your teachers want you to believe. Truth of the matter is that 140,000 volunteers (mostly university profs) are monitoring the articles constantly.
You write a paper. You check over it yourself. You ask the guy next to you if he can look over it. He points out some errors, fixes a few, and adds a little. You then refer it to someone else. they fix it up a little more. And then again. And again. Repeat 100 times, you're going to have one damn good paper. Or, at least, this is the mindset that teachers try to get you into, which is more or less the way Wikipedia works.
[QUOTE=lemon_lover;21334347]In 9th grade, one of my classes went to the schools library, and the librarian had a whole presentation set up to tell us that you shouldn't trust website that end with .com because they are all trying to sell stuff and that websites ending with .info are much more reliable.[/QUOTE]
This is apparently very common in schools.
I remember when I was in high school not long ago, the earlier years we had a fairly average filter, then we switched to a system that basically blocked everything but Google, most .org/.gov/.edu sites (The latter two are rarely as useful as one may think,) the few sites that teachers needed to use at some point in their curriculum, and Wikipedia. This often created some very ironic situations, as my school was mostly anti-Wikipedia, but when they told you to search google for information on a topic, Wikipedia was almost always the only site that wasn't blocked.
It also blocked the school's homepage.
It's a great source for when you want to read on a subject real fast, and it's a great starting point for research papers since you can use the sources cited in the articles, but I wouldn't use it as a primary source.
Has anybody ever tried editing Wikipedia with truthful information? They are really, really picky about anything you put on there. I'd say it a reliable resource. Just use your discretion. if something sounds like bullshit, look at the source, then cross-reference.
When it comes down to it, (some) books may even have a better chance of being more unreliable than a Wikipedia, because it's often just written by one or two people. Nobody goes back and edits your work if you're wrong about something if it's in a book.
I hate how my English teachers used to make us use specific databases that always had like 10 sentences on a subject, while if I could go to wikipedia, it would have paragraphs upon paragraphs of everything I would ever need for a paper. Well, not everything, but it gives you everything you would need to know to start off and find more information/specifics.
Sore Losers.
Actually, my friend posted some bogus but real sounding stuff on the page for MW2, and it got taken off in a matter of minutes.
But still, as someone said before, a good start, never base your entire thing off wikipedia.
Here's how you cite Wikipedia without citing Wikipedia:
Click their in-text citation
Click their citation at the bottom
Boom, instant credible source. How credible? Credible enough that when your professors glance over it, they won't bother looking at it.
On the PSAT last year, the opposing views articles in the critical reading section were about Wikipedia, and the one biased towards Wikipedia said that on a per-article basis, the average numbers of errors of both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica were so close to the same the difference was negligible.
[editline]10:07PM[/editline]
note use of the word "bias"
It's good for anything not controversial, really. There was a study that revealed it's accuracy was on par with that of other encyclopedias. Wikipedia's owners have also made many serious efforts to get rid of vandalism and inaccuracy and the changes made have been effective. Also, don't forget to mention wikipedia cites sources almost all the time. Its articles are basically an easy to read, typed out reference to other sources.
[QUOTE=lemon_lover;21334347]In 9th grade, one of my classes went to the schools library, and the librarian had a whole presentation set up to tell us that you shouldn't trust website that end with .com because they are all trying to sell stuff and that websites ending with .info are much more reliable.
[/QUOTE]
i never did trust this site...
I explained that not just anybody can edit an article.
I explained that every edit is reviewed.
I explained that historical and controversial articles are locked.
I explained that the facts are cited.
"BUT IT IS UNRELIABLE BECAUSE IT IS ON THE INTERNET AND ANYONE CAN HAVE IT CHANGED :hurr:"
[editline]02:27AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Aredbomb;21336306]
It also blocked the school's homepage.[/QUOTE]
"Shot in the foot" applies here.
[QUOTE=GoldenGnome;21338685]i never did trust this site...[/QUOTE]
Use [url]www.facepunch.info[/url] just to be safe
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