Wikipedia Accuracy
By jamed28
@jamed28 (1903)
Philippines
January 21, 2011 7:18am CST
Are those informations from Wikipedia accurate? For those who are not aware where Wikipedia got those tons of informations, well they get it through their members who are ordinary people like us. Wikipedia is an open source directory web site, where people can start an article and let other people edit it, for correction and adding additional informations. Suppose I wrote about an article about Mylot, but the article I wrote was incomplete then someone else can edit it and add his/her additional information about the said article.
Now my question is, what if a member in there put some wrong informations? can this site detect it? Well I guess if a member in there saw this wrong information, then this member might change it, but on those time that nobody is correcting it, then people will still read this wrong information. So do you think it is Accurate?
3 responses
@jamed28 (1903)
• Philippines
21 Jan 11
Sorry! Did I insult your intelligence by asking this question? I have doubt that's why I am asking this question, and I think it's what we are trying to do in here, to share our opinion on somethings. Now if you think, I don't research first for answers, actually I did search first and most of them are agreeing without knowing how wikipedia works. So what I did is explain how it works and try to ask for others opinion if they still think wikipedia is accurate. Yes they are human too like us, and that's one reason why I am asking this, if wikipedia is doing something to avoid this "human....who sometimes, they make a fool writing".
My friend, I am not as wise as you are, but I do have my way of thinking things just like any normal being. So if someone in here, get confuse and ask questions, it doesn't mean they never look for answers first before asking questions.
@Iemon1 (123)
• Singapore
30 Nov 11
Accurate to a extend. There are people out there who are really sincere in contributing information to the society via wikipedia. However, there are also people who likes to put false info onto wikipedia. I believe majority of the people would belong to the first category mentioned
@NoWayRo (1061)
• Romania
21 Jan 11
It depends a lot on the topic.
If the topic is about media, movies, actors, etc. - Wikipedia is pretty reliable, because there are a lot of fans out there willing to gather information and they're always alert to correct any mistakes in the articles.
If you're looking at history, art and science - from what I found, Wikipedia is generally accurate, but it's nearly impossible to find the sources for the articles, and that's a huge pain. This is odd, too - since Wikipedia contributors have very strict rules, they have to quote their sources all the time - but every time I want to check the source directly - whether it's a book or an article online - it doesn't help me one bit.
If the topic is rather controversial, let's say, contemporary politicians - well, then it's quite possible to find some very, very biased articles.
In general, I try to cross-check Wikipedia with another source, though sometimes I have to rely on it, because it's just so easy to use.
