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Yes.

41 (48.8%)

No.

43 (51.2%)

Total Members Voted: 84

[MetalSlimeHunt]

So we've all heard about how Wikipedia is not an acceptable source because anyone can edit it and blah, blah, blah.

The question I pose to you is whether or not this idea of Wikipedia as unreliable is valid.

Personally, I think that Wikipedia is sufficiently paranoid about allowing new edits to stand that it is sufficient as a source. The hundreds of people who apparently do nothing but camp the recent edits page 24/7 is not a small factor in this.

[MonkeyHead]

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.

[kaijyuu]

I wouldn't cite it, but I wouldn't cite any encyclopedia.

...I just steal the citations at the bottom >.>




Wikipedia is an extremely reliable source of information. Vandalism is repaired in an average of like, 3 minutes last I checked, not to mention vandalism often being extremely easy to spot. Anyone terrified of it (any more than any other encyclopedia) is being paranoid.

[Criptfeind]

It's a great source of information, and unless you are doing something pretty important it works. When doing more important and stricter work I still use it, but more for the citations page.

[Leafsnail]

Obviously it's a good source for sources.  I don't think anyone can dispute that.

In itself... I'd say that its high profile scientific information tends to be reasonably accurate, simply because a lot of its contributors seem to know what they're talking about there.  However...

1. If the page is about something controversial or political bias can very easily creep in.  Not that it's necessarily wrong or inaccurate, but it makes it very difficult to take it credibly as a neutral source in those cases.
2. If the page is about something which someone has a commercial interest and isn't too high profile advertising can creep in.  That doesn't seem to be too common though.
3. If the page is about something obscure that a minority of people feel passionately about then the page can degenerate horribly.  The Miracle of Lanciano page, for example, contains stuff that is literally made up (as well as broken links to waybackmachine), which hasn't been corrected as far as I can tell because noone really cares.  So yeah, stick to stuff that people will care about enough to keep verifiable.

[Loud Whispers]

Wikipedia is a reliable source.^{citation needed}

[Flying Dice]

It can be, if you stick to the more well-kept pages. Though as others have said, it's better as a source for sources.

[nenjin]

It's the best research guide out there I think. But that's all it is, a guide. kaijyuu has the right approach.

[Enzo]

If a source is cited on Wikipedia, check that source and use it directly. If a source isn't cited, it's probably still true but unverifiable. Wikipedia is great for finding out what you're looking for, but not really a useable source itself in most situations. For school, unless a prof specifically says Wikipedia is an acceptable source (which I've had once of twice), it's probably not.

Mostly reliable source, but not a citeable source.

[GlyphGryph]

Wikipedia, by design, is not cite-able. It is, quite specifically, a compilation of information from other sources - cite-worthy bits of information are explicitly disallowed on the site. It is a compilation that changes. It is a regular encyclopedia (which I've never known anyone to consider cite-able), but without the ability for at least a permanent (semi?) reference.

[palsch]

It is a regular encyclopedia (which I've never known anyone to consider cite-able), but without the ability for at least a permanent (semi?) reference.

You can cite a particular version of a page by going into history and selecting it's revision number. For example, the page on Tokamak's that exists at the time of posting will always be viewable here and that is the web address I'd cite as any serious reference.

Other than that, yeah. It's an encyclopaedia and so should be used in the same manner.

[MrWiggles]

For a professional academic paper?

No. Though for pretty much anything else? Probably, but if the paper you're writing, then you should be double checking your information anyway.

[ab9rf]

The problem with Wikipedia is that it can be wildly wrong or, worse, vaguely right but grossly biased, and you'll never know unless you already know, in which case why are you looking on Wikipedia?

For "uncontroversial" topics, when it is wrong it's usually obvious, but on controversial topics there can be undisclosed biases that may be hard to spot.  And even knowing when a topic is controversial can be hard: for example, both "cheese" and "hummus" are controversial topics on Wikipedia (the former because of animal rights issues, the latter because of Middle Eastern politics).

[GlyphGryph]

Other than that, yeah. It's an encyclopaedia and so should be used in the same manner.

And let's be honest, the question wasn't simply whether or not you could physically cite something, but whether or not it was an acceptable citation. And I've never been in a situation where encyclopedias were acceptable sources. But I'll give you the point about citing history.

The problem with Wikipedia is that it can be wildly wrong or, worse, vaguely right but grossly biased, and you'll never know unless you already know, in which case why are you looking on Wikipedia?

How is this different from any other source on the planet?

[Capntastic]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia#A_caution_before_citing_Wikipedia<sup>[1]


[1]</sup>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia#A_caution_before_citing_Wikipedia