One more reason to stop using wikipedia on ATS

Great. Someone edited the article in the last half hour and removed the offending material. Awesome. Wikipedia is fixed. Get your info where ever you want. I don't even care any more. I'm out.

Mods, please close my thread and deduct 5,000 ATS points.

Wiki is a great place. Not only to find legitiment fact based information but societal trends and or terminology. It is a melting pot that should be used as a initial reference. Or in other words a first stop but never the last. One should always double check any information with a 2nd more credible source. It is not like they do not warn you

Wikipedia is continually created and updated, with articles on historic events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years. Older articles tend to grow more comprehensive and balanced; newer articles may contain misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Awareness of this aids obtaining valid information and avoiding recently added misinformation (see Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia)

Pertaining to this term, it was in fact made popular by comedian Daniel Tosh, it has been added to the urban dictionary. Considering all the slang terminology making it into the actual dictionary Im surprised it isn't there too. It was related to the actual way he supposedly died.

Now the question is whether the rebels have brought Gaddafi back alive to stand trial. The answer remains unclear, since fighters who had suffered decades of Gaddafi’s dictatorship all started to thrash him, with one stabbing him in his anus with a bayonet—a wound that might have caused a fatal loss of blood, according to Human Rights Watch interviews.

SOURCE

here is the urban dictionary and it is #4 SOURCE

Well, I think Wikipedia does a great service to the internet and the online community in general, as well as in academic fields in real life.

It does one thing perfectly.

If someone is incapable of gathering information, incapable of winnowing fact from fiction and they rely solely on wikipedia for their entire point, argument and evidence, then I know at a glance.

Easy to work out the worthy information and who to bother to engage.

If someone is diligent enough and have done their research, be it faulty or accurate based on their ability, and they use wikipedia as a reference, I see no problem with it. If it backs up what they say, and it's not a hidden agenda on a blog with some scurrilous half witted account on wikipedia which is later revoked for inaccuracy, then why would it not be valid?

If someone simply uses wikipedia as an encyclopedia and consider it a point of reference alone, then they do themselves no favours.

I read it on wiki. Nyah! = fail.

Here is a reference, on wiki, which backs up my claim. = potential.

Being that if you are a registered user of Wikipedia, you do have the option to edit the articles, it should be more than obvious to most that any inaccurate information is either marked as possibly inaccurate or outright deleted by someone who does know.

It's not a graffiti on the wall toilet wall, you know.

If you can't find it elsewhere or if you are not able to provide other references to the information you present, then don't use wiki as the be all and end all. But it works in a pinch to help in a case if the information is evident elsewhere, and serves to condense information for such purposes.

reply to post by ZeroReady


Samurai were sometimes paid with land. They were usually paid with rice/food, but sometimes they were paid with land or other things.

Anyway.. on the subject of Wiki. No one should take it as a completely serious source, everyone knows it is user edited. It's fine for non controversial topics, but anything that is the least bit controversial or regarding politics, countries, people is likely to be edited. If a page is subject to massive edits or editing wars Wikipedia sometimes makes a note of it.

Either way, you are right about it not being reliable, but I think in a lot of instances Wikipedia is a good source. If you are just using it to confirm something you already know it's fine. Just to show that "yes this is known and here is a place where it is written" and if it's still questioned research further. I definitely don't think it should be banned from being allowed as a source. It's a good first reference.

reply to post by g0dhims3lf


Exactly. It's a great reference. You can research further if need be.

Originally posted by g0dhims3lf
Wiki is a great place. Not only to find legitiment fact based information but societal trends and or terminology. It is a melting pot that should be used as a initial reference. Or in other words a first stop but never the last. One should always double check any information with a 2nd more credible source. It is not like they do not warn you

Wikipedia is continually created and updated, with articles on historic events appearing within minutes, rather than months or years.

Awwww HAMBURGERS. You said it !

Just before I did.. I should read threads to the end to stave off this occurring again.

lol, I'm sure I did that though... O.o

reply to post by bekod


Look I don't pretend to be the authority on feudal Japan. I had to write a long research paper on it last semester and my history book says samurai were paid in rice and labor, not land. The labor was to be used on any land owned by the samurai's family in his absence while doing samurai things. But his loyalty was to the Daimyo, not to his family or to a plot of land.

And since land was so important in feudal Japan (land=power), the Daimyo knew that in order to keep the samurai in their place, they couldn't pay them in land for two reasons.
1.Japan is an island and there is only so much land to go around
2.The last thing a Daimyo wanted was a bunch of samurai thinking they were gaining independence for themselves.

The wiki on it simply said that samurai were aid in land. I changed it to say they were paid in rice because that's how they were paid.

reply to post by ZeroReady

Originally posted by tport17
I don't see a problem with using Wikipedia...

"There are lies, damned lies, statistics, and then there's Wikipedia."

If George Soros recommends Wikipedia, it MUST be true, right?

Who Controls Wikipedia? (George Soros)

It is a propaganda outlet dominated by people who want to radically transform our existence.

There's a reason Soros supports it. Because his vast minions can manipulate it. And manipulate it they do.

I encourage everybody to take a look at the wikimedia's own webpage:

Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board

Search the page for "soros" or "open society" and right there for all of us to see, three of them!

Melissa(Hagemann) manages the Open Access Initiative within the Information Program of the Open Society Institute (OSI)/Soros foundations.

Ethan(Zuckerman) also works with Open Society Institute's Information Program, along with Melissa Hagemann.

Trevor Neilson is a Partner in the Global Philanthropy Group , a company that advises philanthropists on the development and implementation of philanthropic strategies. Neilson formed DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa) with Bill Gates, Bono and George Soros, served as a founding board member, and stays involved as a member of DATA's policy board.

There's also a fourth member of the wikimedia foundation who is from OSI. Seeing the following is what made me curious enough to look for this info. You can see that here:

Wall Space (MacKinnon Formerly of CNN, now works for Soros)

freerepublic.com...

Who Controls Wikipedia? Who Sponsors Wikipedia? ( George Soros )
www.freerepublic.com...

The problem with Wikipedia is not that it exists, but that it has become the cornerstone for researchers scanning the Internet for information and blindly copying from Wikipedia entries, wrongfully assuming that they are neutral and correct.

It has become the "Ministry of Information", the "one-stop information shop" of the Internet, but no one should fall for the "Newspeak" of a title. Wikipedia has made the task for those seeding disinformation and removing dissenting views easier, more direct and even more anonymous. °

Wikipedia Lies:Online Disinformation & Propaganda

reply to post by ZeroReady


When I was in uni, we weren't allowed to quote Wikipedia as a source due to its unreliability...

There was a study done in England that found the error rate on Wikipedia was less than that of Encyclopedia Britannica. As far as the internet goes, that is very reliable. Seeing as we can't exactly reference books, what would you like us to reference? Fox News? MSNBC? Some random site someone found on Google?

I have the ability to access scientific journals online in some cases, but not many people do. Don't you think Wikipedia is a great source? In fact, I think more people should be using sources.

Study: Wikipedia as Accurate as Britannica

This really shouldn't be an issue at all, unless people are too lazy to make two clicks.

I use Wikipedia all the time, but I never directly use it as a source. Why? Well because Wikipedia articles that have factual information are sourced and linked...so I use the original source for the information.

It is really quite easy to do, people should try it.

reply to post by scottlpool2003


When I was in college one of our teachers told us not to use it and that she expected it to fail (it was less popular at the time, probably 6 or 7 years ago). It was funny to me because honestly, Wikipedia is great and one of the most used websites on the internet.

Originally posted by xedocodex
This really shouldn't be an issue at all, unless people are too lazy to make two clicks.

I use Wikipedia all the time, but I never directly use it as a source. Why? Well because Wikipedia articles that have factual information are sourced and linked...so I use the original source for the information.

It is really quite easy to do, people should try it.

That is a great arguing point. If the cited sources on wiki don't stand up to scrutiny, then the author of any external post should know this.

So again, if they don't and go ahead with using faulty information, we can tell.

There is no issue with wiki at all. It's either laziness on behalf of the person using it, or on behalf of those reading information presented from it.

reply to post by ANOK


Failing that you can expose the bias in the talk page of the article ...

reply to post by darkbake


You know what I love... every politically skewed producer of "talking head" information hastens to criticize Wikipedia whenever something they find offensive about them or their 'cause' appears there and they can't remove because it's true.

And then there's the adolescent-minded trolls who get a rise out of planting something obscure and remote - but outrageously wrong - just so they can joint the chorus against the only repository of information which allows actual people to contribute to the process of gathering knowledge for everyone to use.

The tools are all there to see who wrote what - when - and often there are lengthy dialogues which allow you to see the process in action.

Wikipedia is an unfinished product which will never be finished. There will always be incorrect information - but it will be found in the end.... unlike the "here are all the facts you need to know" internet-consumer products made ... just for money.

reply to post by Maxmars


Listen, the fact that there exists a giant body of information like wikipedia is not the cause of my frustration. The problem is more and more people are gravitating to wikipedia without checking the sources. Our culture is getting faster and faster and more about instant gratification. It's great that you and others check sources on wiki. Really, it matters.

Having a giant body of knowledge to which everyone can freely contribute is downright dangerous if people do not use empiricism, rationalism, and skepticism equally in the search for knowledge.

If you want to find information without using wiki, here is one example. This is a free, publicly accessible, peer reviewed article on the differences between monocot plants and dicots.

www.ucmp.berkeley.edu...

There are plenty of places on the net to get factual information. If you want to debate epistemology and how we even know what is factual, then I'd be more than happy to meet you in the philosophy forum. If, however your skepticism knob is turned up so much higher than your empiricism and rationalism knobs that you believe wikipedia is the only bastion of free, un-corrupted information on the entire internet, then we are at a fundamental cleavage and I'm not sure how to progress.

Originally posted by darkbake
There was a study done in England that found the error rate on Wikipedia was less than that of Encyclopedia Britannica. As far as the internet goes, that is very reliable. Seeing as we can't exactly reference books, what would you like us to reference? Fox News? MSNBC? Some random site someone found on Google?

I have the ability to access scientific journals online in some cases, but not many people do. Don't you think Wikipedia is a great source? In fact, I think more people should be using sources.

Any one willing to bet that George Soros was ALSO behind that study?

I see sites like Wikipedia as nothing more than MSM behind a stealth facade of fake credibility.

Originally posted by ZeroReady
This is the opening sentence of the section about the origins of the Arab Spring movement. One of the most important social revolutions in modern times, and some jackass wants to be funny with it.

Well for one the revolutions are NOT one of the most important social revolutions of modern times. It is just another version of the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat funded and organised by Western governments (The Iranian Coup was to stop Iran from nationalizing their oil....I hope your ignorance doesn't extend to the understanding of the meaning of nationalizing). What Iran attempted to do is precisely what Libya/Gaddaffi tried to do...Gaddaffi was organizing a new currency so AFRICA (Yes, he was on his way to uniting Africa as a whole) no longer needed to rely on the US dollar. He was also building a water facility capable of providing Libya AND SURROUNDING COUNTRIES with fresh water...Facilities that were bombed by NATO forces. This is just the tip of the iceberg. You want to learn more? Research it.

Originally posted by ZeroReady
Deny Ignorance.

Please, do so.

Someone asked a question about drones the other day. They had seen a small flying/hovering thing, in the UK. They wanted to know what was the first use of drones in the US. I told them it was much more complicated than that and pointed them to Wikipedia (without too much shame; although I did mutter a small disclaimer).

I think that was a legitimate use of Wikipedia. They didn't need excruciatingly exact factual information; just an overview of the subject. But I would never, ever (I swear on my grandmother) send someone there to read up on, oh, say, Conspiracy Theory!

I don't generally recommend Wikipedia as a source for anything other than "The Official Story." If that's all you need, that's all you need....