Criticisms and reviews of Wikipedia by: user Nanabozho
For God sake, you're in college; don't cite the encyclopedia.
This entry was posted on 07-18-2007 and is filed under uncategorized.
The title of this post is quote from Jimmy Wales talking about inaccuracies in Wikipedia (WP). Wired Campus There is even a page on Wikipedia called: Wikipedia:Academic use that says, "However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may not be considered acceptable, because Wikipedia is not a creditable source." Academic Creditable? I looked up credible on Wiktionary, and it's a synonym for credible. So is WP saying it's not credible or creditable? I am tempted to edit that line and replace creditable with credible, because I thinks it's confusing.
Enough on that. I am predicting WP will be a credible source. Yes, we want it to be only an encyclopedia, but that's only temporary I am writing. WP will grow, and there's no reason it shouldn't be more than that, and gradually approach being the source. It all ready is in some respects. People are not supposed to rely on it as the final word, but let's face it, most people aren't librarians or researchers and a significant amount of them go no further than WP. I remember perhaps the most important thing I learning at accounting school. Don't sell people what you have, sell them what they need. Most of the users want WP to be a source. I write this based upon no research beyond looking at the top searches on WP from time to time.
I've written before words the effect of, Grow Wikipedia Grow. It has, it can, and it should. I've suggested different tiers of WP. One for things that have questions of notability, so how about one related to being a credible source? OK, I'll write it, merge with Sanger's Citizendium.
Here's a video from YouTube that gave me some ideas for parts of this post. For being critical of Wikipedia, it's one of the best from there: