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Yes.

41 (48.8%)

No.

43 (51.2%)

Total Members Voted: 84

[nenjin]

There is really no replacement for reading critically and evaluating the validity of the source yourself.

[Strange guy]

Not in an academic paper or worse some professional writing, but normally it's fine and people who go 'lol wikipedia' when someone uses it as a source or whatever in something as unimportant in internet arguments are annoying.

[Servant Corps]

Not in an academic paper or worse some professional writing, but normally it's fine and people who go 'lol wikipedia' when someone uses it as a source or whatever in something as unimportant in internet arguments are annoying.

The Fair Society: The Science of Human Nature and the Pursuit of Social Justice, by Peter Coring, cites Wikipedia in Chapter 7, specifically the page http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_(centrism) .

In retrospect, it's clear that both Smith and Marx - and a great many of their soul mates - underrated the importance of political power in determine "who gets what, when, how" to quote the subtitle of a famous tract by twentieth-century political scientist Harold Laswell.

The citation was to point out that he was quoting Wikipedia's quotation of Harold Laswell. Today, if you go that Wikipedia page, you won't find that quote.

The Fair Society was published in 2011 by the University of Chicago Press.

I had to read this book for a college class on Human Rights. It was when browsing the footnotes that I found his citation of Wikipedia.

[penguinofhonor]

It can be, if you stick to the more well-kept pages.

This is pretty much true. Wikipedia relies on everyone keeping everyone else in check, so little pages that haven't had much editing don't have as much checking either.

One of my biology professors freshman year actually gave out a list of about 15 wikipedia pages related to biology that he had checked out and said were fine to cite.

[GlyphGryph]

Servant Corp, considering that's not even an acceptable way to cite wikipedia (for the exact reason you described), its definitely not an acceptable citation.

I would definitely question the credentials of this books author. Or at least his ability to cite properly.

[Gantolandon]

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.).

[GlyphGryph]

Gatolandon, that's why you permalink. A permalink wikipedia citation doesn't change.

[penguinofhonor]

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.

But that's true of the entire internet. Wikipedia might be a hair more ephemeral, but the rest of the internet is still changing constantly.

Gatolandon, that's why you permalink. A permalink wikipedia citation doesn't change.

Wikipedia is pretty unique among ever-changing sites in providing those, two. Most places don't have an edit history.

[Leafsnail]

I thought providing the date you accessed a webpage was good practice anyway.

[Gantolandon]

Gatolandon, that's why you permalink. A permalink wikipedia citation doesn't change.

Huh? I didn't know that.

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.

But that's true of the entire internet. Wikipedia might be a hair more ephemeral, but the rest of the internet is still changing constantly.

That's why including any Internet sources into an academic paper is risky unless you're absolutely sure they will stay that way without disappearing or being changed. It will be a bit embarrassing if someone wants to use it several years later and discovers that the only thing supporting your claims is a string of broken links.

[LordSlowpoke]

Ehh...

Not that I think Wikipedia's not credible, but I'm just going to leave this here.

Draw your own conclusions.

[Gantolandon]

This kind of things is also possible with traditional sources. I have plenty of historic books written before 1989 when Marxism-Leninism was the official state ideology and every scientist had to at least know it. Some of them are sort of credible, others are downright hilarious. In the democratic countries there is no official censorship, but it doesn't mean science is free of ideological and cultural bias. Not to mention occasional quacks who manage to gather enough support to push their ideas - let's just mention the father of lobotomy, Walter Freeman.

A group dedicated to editing Wikipedia to push their pet agenda neither surprises, nor scares me much. At least when everyone can edit the site, their tampering is easier to detect and neutralize. Imagine these people working with a standard encyclopedia.

[talysman]

I second citing the sources, rather than Wikipedia directly, but also suggest looking for discussions on a particular page. This can warn you of possibly disputed statements, or lead you to other citations that were excluded from the main page.

For historical events before the 20th century, Wikipedia pages are frequently based on a core page imported from the Encyclopedia Britannica. You might want to consider citing that instead.

As for whether a Wikipedia citation will be accepted or not, that's up to the audience, isn't it? Citations in academic papers for school work have to meet whatever standards the teacher/professor has set. Citations for academic publications have to meet the standards of the editors. Citations for popularly published works will be judged by the readership at large. If you ask *me* if I will accept a citation as valid or not, my answer is meaningless, because I am not your final audience, just some guy on the internet.

[ab9rf]

Gatolandon, that's why you permalink. A permalink wikipedia citation doesn't change.

Usually.  If that particular revision is revdeleted or oversighted, the permalink will either not work at all or show something other than what you expected.  One of the dirty secrets of Wikipedia is that edit histories are not necessarily complete, and can be tampered with after the fact (but only by some Wikipedians, the ones with the greatest political connections generally).  Revision deletion was originally intended only for copyright infringement and defamatory content, but has been used increasingly lately to allow powerful members of Wikipedia's community to whitewash their own activities, especially when they might tend to bring ill repute down upon them.

Of course, Wikipedia is just like all other human activities in this regard, but they like to pretend that this isn't the case.

[Leafsnail]

You could find a cached version of the page, then?