Wikipedia Survives Research Test, page 1

The free online resource Wikipedia is about as accurate on science as the Encyclopedia Britannica, a study shows.

BBC News

The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and found few differences in accuracy.

But it has been criticised for the correctness of entries, most recently over the biography of prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler.

In order to test its reliability, Nature conducted a peer review of scientific entries on Wikipedia and the well-established Encyclopedia Britannica.

The reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about the source of the information.

"Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia," reported Nature.

"But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales welcomed the study.

"We're hoping it will focus people's attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty good," he said.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Well - there you have it:

Wikipedia is OKEY!

I remember there were many debates about Wikipedia, not being a Reliable source for Information, especially since mister journalist John Seigenthaler has claimed that "Wikipedia is a flawed and irresponsible research tool."

Well - I guess he was WRONG.

Wikipedia currently has 1.8 million articles in 200 languages - including some 800,000 entries in English and it relies on 13,000 volunteer contributors.