Wikipedia

Mmkay. So a lot of you have said that wikipedia is contributed to by "the public".
So who makes all the other sites, then?
Because, sure, the vast majority of other webpages are created by the public. And in a lot of cases, I'd rather trust the 'people' than government sites, if you get what I mean.

Bloodraine:

Mmkay. So a lot of you have said that wikipedia is contributed to by "the public".
So who makes all the other sites, then?
Because, sure, the vast majority of other webpages are created by the public. And in a lot of cases, I'd rather trust the 'people' than government sites, if you get what I mean.

I agree with you fully.

I was just saying what my parents (Dad a highschool english teacher, Mom a college writing proffesor) said..

At uni we are absolutely not allowed to use wiki. Not because its biased, we get told that almost all information sources are biased and that you should come up with many different sources for this reason. Wiki is dodgy because all of its articles are made up from information submitted by random members of the public, of who the majority probably dont have a clue what they're talking about. Yes, there are editors, but they aren't experts and probably don't have time to fully research each article, if they did they would just write the articles themselves anyway. I do think that wiki is a great place to look if you want links to other sites on a topic though.

Bloodraine:

Mmkay. So a lot of you have said that wikipedia is contributed to by "the public".
So who makes all the other sites, then?
Because, sure, the vast majority of other webpages are created by the public. And in a lot of cases, I'd rather trust the 'people' than government sites, if you get what I mean.

Anyone has the right to edit wikipedia, anyone and everyone has the right to. Other websites aren't like that, only people who own the site have the right to change and edit things. Personally, I wouldnt use information from some site that anyone has access to, and any can submit false information under. Like my anal sex incident with motion. There will be no mention of anal sex in my lab report, obviously. However articles can be edited to contain information that may seem logical and correct, when its really compltely false.

i use wiki beacuase sometimes its the only resource i can find! its normally correct though, this one kid in my grade spends all his spare time looking on wikipeada and he is really smart.

Wikipedia is great, even if it is contributed by the public. Hey, i use it for most of my school stuff, and i get an A+!

They actually encourage us to use it at college, I don't think it's too biased because it has a lot of information about things like music/artists that you can't really change around because they're just facts. And it's good for all the citizenship essay crap I have to do.

I think it's the best site I could work with.

Of course there's some shit in it, since everyone can wrtie articles that's the risk of it, but the things I used were alright :]

my brother swears by it and my dad hates, lol I don't know what to think about it. Except for the fact that anyone can edit anything they want about it and the one of the guy who started is a porn actor or director or something (or was and isn't anymore). I have found lots of information on it that is fasle, but lots of information that is true. So I don't know...

a lot of the information is good quality, but it depends what you use it for. Its a bit like Urban dictionary in that respect. anyone can edit it, so its bound to be a bit biased, but if you just use it for finding information on bands, books etc its good because you can correct something if you know its wrong, and half the time there are external links to other sites, so if the Wiki article is crap likelyhood is that one of them will be useful

Well, Wikipedia is a great source for just regular research. It has a lot of options.
The only thing I don't like it that friggen edit button. People could be all, "Yes, Boston was the capital YOUR MOM." Even though we know that's not true, people would get irritated with the fact that they have to go to a different link to find out the info because of another person's carelessness.


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I think it's awesome
Wikipedia is usually one of the first links that comes up on google, and it's (almost) never failed me.
Because it's open to everyone - any mistakes are soon cleared up. So arguing that public contribution is a bad thing just doesn't work.
Plus, all the pages are in the same, standard format - making it much easier to read than many other websites.
Well, that's my input.

lyrical_mess:

Kurtni:

Someone was tampering with articles on wikipedia today. We're working with motion in physics, and we were researching about it. The article on measuring motion had been edited to include informatiob about how to measure motion in anal sex based on screams. Lovely thing to run across in science class.

What grade are you in? And did the teacher see?

9th and no we didn't show the teacher. We were too busy laughing at it.

I think it's a great site.

I do laso think it's really annoying how whenever you go on there, someone is like, 'OMFG NO EVERYTHING IS FALSE OMG '

which really pisses me off.

it's not like wiki is the only site that gives false information.

and if you're researching for some project, and it's about some history thing , do you think people would really go on there and screw around? They'd probably just edit some band info or something like that.

The One Of Light.:

I think it's a great site.

I do laso think it's really annoying how whenever you go on there, someone is like, 'OMFG NO EVERYTHING IS FALSE OMG '

which really pisses me off.

it's not like wiki is the only site that gives false information.

and if you're researching for some project, and it's about some history thing , do you think people would really go on there and screw around? They'd probably just edit some band info or something like that.

Browse around wikipedia's history articles sometimes. Did you know that the American Revoluton was caused by a shortage of cheese? Fun fact from wikipedia!

I get loads of help from Wikipedia. I love it, I do all my research in English on Wikipedia. I also use Encarta but I only have it in Spanish.

Don't they cite references? Unless they're inaccurate too, how can you argue with them? I personally have never found Wiki biased, nor have I been told not to use it.

HOWEVER.

They did get Davey Havok's birthday wrong (off by a year, methinks), as Joel Deffries found out when he went on air with false information and was made to look like a phool by Davey himself. Stats like that are absolutely crucial in interviews if you want to look like a pro

wikipedia is good for scrolling straight to the bottom and clicking on their sources
otherwise it's all presented biased

Meh, a lot of information on there is incorrect but a big bulk of it is correct.

It's alright for a starting point, but if you need accurate information that's 100% then you need to make sure you double check stuff.

But wikipedia's alright for a bit of research if you just wanna copy and paste and be a lazy head.

Pretty Like Drugs:

Don't they cite references? Unless they're inaccurate too, how can you argue with them? I personally have never found Wiki biased, nor have I been told not to use it.

HOWEVER.

They did get Davey Havok's birthday wrong (off by a year, methinks), as Joel Deffries found out when he went on air with false information and was made to look like a phool by Davey himself. Stats like that are absolutely crucial in interviews if you want to look like a pro

Well, just because they site sources doesn't mean those sources are accurate or even real. Wikipedia can be very helpful at times when you're studying something no one has the need to distort an opinion about. Like informative articles about animals or something, those are typically ok as long as some idiot doesn't add totally abstract things in, On more political, contreversial issues it tends to be more opinionated, which isn't always a bad thing as long as you look somewhere else to get the other side of the argument before you form your own views.