RE: Wikipedia?

[Karl Bridges <Karl.Bridges@uvm.edu>]

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.