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Yes.

41 (48.8%)

No.

43 (51.2%)

Total Members Voted: 84

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The true problem with citing Wikipedia is not whether it is reliable or not. Frankly, there are many books out there, some of them written by the worst crackpots this poor planet has seen. But even this books have one advantage: when written, they won't change. The things you cite from Wikipedia today, may be completely changed tomorrow or not exist at all. Providing that you checked the info, this should rarely happen, but some minor yet vital changes are within the realm of possibility.

If you really want to cite from Wikipedia, you should at least include the date to let your readers check the revision history. Even then, avoid uncited claims and weasel words ("Some scientists say...", etc.).

All information changes, as does what we know about things. If a citation is invalidated by a change to Wikipedia it probably wasn't valid in the first place and you should move on to another work.

If anything, that is an advantage to Wikipedia citations, not a fault.

[alway]

The true problem with citing Wikipedia is not whether it is reliable or not. Frankly, there are many books out there, some of them written by the worst crackpots this poor planet has seen. But even this books have one advantage: when written, they won't change. The things you cite from Wikipedia today, may be completely changed tomorrow or not exist at all. Providing that you checked the info, this should rarely happen, but some minor yet vital changes are within the realm of possibility.

If you really want to cite from Wikipedia, you should at least include the date to let your readers check the revision history. Even then, avoid uncited claims and weasel words ("Some scientists say...", etc.).

All information changes, as does what we know about things. If a citation is invalidated by a change to Wikipedia it probably wasn't valid in the first place and you should move on to another work.

If anything, that is an advantage to Wikipedia citations, not a fault.

Not only that, but a good citation includes date. Wikipedia doesn't remove old info; you can still access it from the page's history. It even includes a search with which the information at a specified date can be found.

[Tilla]

Really the best use of wikipedia, besides just getting a quick collation of data, is that it requires citations to be linked; those are far more valuable, as you can then go out and pursue those more reputable primary sources.

[Sensei]

For academic papers, you're probably best treating wikipedia like an index of primary sources.

[Telgin]

Using the sources that Wikipedia cites directly is probably a better idea than using Wikipedia itself. Not that the information becomes any less reliable once its on Wikipedia, but is nice to have first hand sources.

This, basically.

I've had professors that went both ways on the issue.  Most don't seem to mind using Wikipedia as a reference, but I've had the odd one that does.  Most seem to think it's quite reliable.

In the end though, using their citations where possible avoids the issue entirely if the cited sources are reliable themselves.

[GalenEvil]

Most of the teachers I have had have said that I can use "The Wiki" as a starting location to find additional sources, but that I had to cite the wikipage as an index source with date of access. I used the wiki as well as a few lesser known interweb locations for the majority of my information for almost all of my papers (excluding those that I had already obtained the books for prior to being given an assignment).

I think that Wikipedia is a good source for information so long as you take what it says with a grain of salt and do some deep delving into the original source materials to get contextual citations that actually support what you are trying to say. One hypothetical example is a fictional wiki page that has a citation from "XYZ Book": "the Earth is indeed flat..."; now, you could just take that at face value and say that the author of XYZ Book is a moron but if you actually went to the linked source (in this example the source is indeed linked), it says: "For the majority of history people have said the Earth is indeed flat, but..." blah blah blah and the author is making a point that in the olden days people didn't know any better then to say the world is flat, but "This person here" figured out that the world is, in fact, roughly spherical in shape.

That actual example is probably a bad one since the Wiki-community would probably re-cite "XYZ Book" in its proper context within a few hours; but the point is to check the facts and don't take what is cited at face value. Ever.

[da_nang]

It's mostly reliable for non-professional work. Beyond that, there'll be a problem with citogenesis.

[GalenEvil]

that made me laugh inside silently (LIS^(tm))

[Muz]

I've been citing websites for a few years now for academia and otherwise, as often they're a faster, more up to date, and more easily accessible source than most books.

And I'm noticing one huge problem with them - websites just don't stay up for very long. Wikipedia, by nature, has constantly changing content. Sure, it's a reliable source of information, but most people, when looking up your citation will find different content to what you were pulling content from. The pages Wikipedia refers to tend to be a little more static, but not Wikipedia itself.

So, for things like Internet debates which people will look up immediately, definitely. Things like academic papers and books which are supposed to last for years, no.

[Blizzlord]

It does not matter if it is reliable or not, because the teachers might give you a fail if they see it among your sources. You should not use it in these cases at least.

[Sheb]

Well, I don't use it, but then we're not allowed to use anything but recent (15 years at most, less than 10 if possible), peer-reviewed article. (Science, Yeah!!!!)

As it has been said, the main problem is that what you cite may change a bit later. You should at least give the date you consulted it.

But then again, why cite Wikipedia, when you can cite the links at the bottom?

Fakeedit: Wikipedia is however a great place to find illustration: they're usually really clear and clean, and you've got no copyright problems.

[Loud Whispers]

The hardest "unintentional mistakes" for people to spot are numbers. And so you frequently find people being born after they're dead on wikipedia.

[G-Flex]

I really don't get why this poll is as close as it is.

Wikipedia is not an appropriate thing to cite. Note the simple fact that literally anything on Wikipedia (or at least, anything that would require citation in general) needs to be sourced from somewhere and well-cited. If something like that is in an article and doesn't have a source cited, then it's both unreliable and violating Wikipedia policy. In other words, if something from Wikipedia is worth citing, then cite the original source instead.

Wikipedia is a great tool for initial research, but in addition to it being editable by anyone and not necessarily reliable, the simple fact remains that it's meant as a compendium of knowledge from reliable external sources. Citing Wikipedia on a paper is like citing "a friend of mine who found it in some issue of this academic journal". Just go read the academic journal itself! Or, in this case, look at the sources of the Wikipedia article.

As for Wikipedia's reliability, it's not that it's good or bad, but it does vary a lot, and even a relatively small chance of information being erroneous is bad if you're writing anything remotely academic. Some articles are well-written and well-sourced and generally very accurate, whereas others (although this is more the case with popular culture articles) basically amount to Stuff Some Guy Wrote and pretty much violate Wikipedia policies rather consistently.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It does not matter if it is reliable or not, because the teachers might give you a fail if they see it among your sources. You should not use it in these cases at least.

You are not understanding the purpose of this thread.

[zombie urist]

Fun story I heard about Wikipedia a few years ago. Don't know how true it is.

A guy was supposed to give a presentation on Bruce Lee. So the day before the thing was due, his classmate edited the Bruce Lee wikipedia article. The next day, the kid presents "Bruce Lee is a famous chef from Arizona, where he currently resides..."