RE: Wikipedia?

["Chen, Xiaotian" <chen@bumail.bradley.edu>]

People seem to forget to divide entries of Wikipedia into 
different categories:  For science entries, they may be as good 
as those in Britannica.  However, for social science entries, 
Wikipedia probably cannot compete with Britannica.

Cases in point:

Not so long ago during the political campaign season, Wikipedia 
biographies of politicians were modified by their opponents.

Recently, it was disclosed that Microsoft had some Wikipedia entries
modified for business gain.

---
Xiaotian Chen
Electronic Services Librarian
Bradley University
Peoria, Illinois 61625
http://hilltop.bradley.edu/~chen/index.html


-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Karl Bridges
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2007 4:54 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu; David Goodman
Subject: RE: Wikipedia?

Well, I guess if people want to use Wikipedia OK -- each to his 
own.  I still think it shows something of a slippage of 
standards. And for those who think errors are OK -- well, fine -- 
I just hope my doctor or the next airline pilot I meet doesn't 
think that being 87 percent right is OK.  Wait -- I fly Jetblue 
-- they simply sit at the gate covered in ice for nine hours -- 
nevermind....

Quoting David Goodman <dgoodman@Princeton.EDU>:

> The comparison is not Wikipedia vis-a-vis professional reference
> books; the comparison is Wikipedia vis-a-vis the entire
> searchable web--and the superiority of WP filtering in areas of
> interest to its users are obvious. Some traditional academic
> areas are not covered well in either.
>
> Another comparison is Wikipedia vs that part of a library's
> collection that is available online, which is all that many users
> will now see, and yet a third is the comparison of Wikipedia to
> what is available online to the user who is affiliated with a
> small college or without academic affiliation.
>
> Obviously no one would use Wikipedia is most areas as the key
> reference source, but for anyone with interest in unexpected
> areas there is a surprising amount which can not be readily found
> otherwise.
>
> I would not rely on Wikipedia for fact checking as the ultimate
> reference, but an inspection of the history of any article will
> show the advantage in having multiple fact-checkers. Not just
> Wikipedia , but wikis in general are probably the way to gather
> information from widespread contributors.
>
> Beginners might want to try
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Technology or
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:List_of_portals#Arts_and_Culture.
> and try some things.
>
> Even more interesting, try some of the foreign language
> versions--some articles are just crude translations, but by no
> means all. I particularly recommend the German one,
> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauptseite. In some areas, it bears
> the same relation to the English one as traditional German
> academic reference books did to those in English 70 years ago.
>
> David Goodman, Ph.D., M.L.S.