Wrath of Blog

Shiny Shiny: Shiny Poll: How trustworthy is Wikipedia?

That there poll is interesting.  They claim there’s been “lots of press about the reliability of everyone’s favourite resource, Wikipedia.”

I don’t know about “lots” of press, but the fact is that it seems many people don’t know the difference between vetted (substantiated) and unsubstantiated information.  Maybe it’s the grad school background talking, but I don’t think information’s any good unless I know at least where it came from, and can make some educated guesses about what the bias is, how & why it got there and how & why it got created. 

Obviously, I’m not a fan of “anonymous” sources in my information.  Don’t believe them, ever.  I assume it’s made up unless I’ve got info.

I’m strict.  I have a lot of doubt.  I think very critically.  And I think everyone should, and too few people do.

The Wiki is not vetted information.  It’s right a lot of the time, it’s biased a lot of the time, it’s amusing sometimes and it’s wrong a lot of the time.  It’s good to go there if you need a quick info link for your blog, and you already know enough about the subject to see if their info is any good.  It’s sometimes good as a starting point.  But generally, it’s not a safe bet to just trust it outright. 

Which is why, when I was teaching college, you automatically got a Fail on your rough draft, and a D on your final, for using the Wiki, unless you cleared it with me beforehand and could show you chose to use it for a worthwhile reason, and couldn’t get the information elsewhere. 

I was happy to note that so far 73% said they take the Wiki with a pinch of salt.  I’d like to smack the 19 that said “totally.”