Your thoughts on Wikipedia

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TAMKFan

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#1 TAMKFan
Member since 2004 • 33353 Posts
I'm interested to hear thoughts in this forum about the biggest and most popular Wiki out there, Wikipedia. I browse the site a lot, as it has a lot of interesting information about various topics. I do have a few annoyances about Wikipedia though. Like sometimes they want you to cite something that's actually obvious or else it'll be removed. You can't cite everything. And also the notability guideline and how some people seem to misunderstand it and insist on nominating for deletion or redirecting an article, even when it is notable. Not to mention, I don't even agree with that guideline in the first place. So, what do you guy think?
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Lonelynight

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#2 Lonelynight
Member since 2006 • 30051 Posts
I like it.
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deactivated-5f9e3c6a83e51

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#3 deactivated-5f9e3c6a83e51
Member since 2004 • 57548 Posts

It's ok, but it doeshave a lot of subjective information in it. Certain groups with certain agendas seem to editorialize a lot of the entries.

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BossPerson

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#4 BossPerson
Member since 2011 • 9177 Posts

i love wikipedia, Its an amzing toook for knowledge, almost as good as google imo. Often give both sides of story. And to the ppl saying that "oh anybody can just write whatever they want." I say,"who gets off by falsifying pages regarding M-Theory??"

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gamerguru100

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#5 gamerguru100
Member since 2009 • 12718 Posts

It's fine...I guess.

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nicksonman

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#6 nicksonman
Member since 2009 • 1221 Posts

It's ok, but it doeshave a lot of subjective information in it. Certain groups with certain agendas seem to editorialize a lot of the entries.

sonicare
Agreed. You can have arguments with another user about what's correct. Say you add an entry and someone else thinks it's incorrect. They'll change it. Then you'll change it back. Then they'll change it back again. Eventually you could get a meanish comment from them.
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brendanhunt1

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#7 brendanhunt1
Member since 2008 • 2333 Posts
It did my homework
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nicksonman

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#8 nicksonman
Member since 2009 • 1221 Posts
They've been going hard on donation requests recently. First, Jimmy Wales had his mug up there, now other members.
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BossPerson

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#9 BossPerson
Member since 2011 • 9177 Posts
They've been going hard on donation requests recently. First, Jimmy Wales had his mug up there, now other members. Nicksonman
cant blame 'em, wikipedia doesnt have any ads. I hope it stays that way.
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ehhwhatever

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#10 ehhwhatever
Member since 2010 • 1463 Posts
I've donated to wikipedia so yea I like. you do a search almost everytime there is a link to wikipedia. I also like brainyquote.
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Planet_Pluto

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#11 Planet_Pluto
Member since 2011 • 2235 Posts

It's ok, but it doeshave a lot of subjective information in it. Certain groups with certain agendas seem to editorialize a lot of the entries.

sonicare

I pretty much agree with this. It's not a bad tool to have around on the net, but I take virtually everything I read on there with a grain of salt.

As a side note, too often the report that someone has died, when they in fact are still alive.

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gamerguru100

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#12 gamerguru100
Member since 2009 • 12718 Posts

[QUOTE="sonicare"]

It's ok, but it doeshave a lot of subjective information in it. Certain groups with certain agendas seem to editorialize a lot of the entries.

Nicksonman

Agreed. You can have arguments with another user about what's correct. Say you add an entry and someone else thinks it's incorrect. They'll change it. Then you'll change it back. Then they'll change it back again. Eventually you could get a meanish comment from them.

This. It's ALWAYS them that gets the upper hand. Apparently, the content has to be exactly what the source says. Bullsh*t.

I have a pet-peeve where it bothers me when I see the terms "African American", "Asian American", etc. being used but not the term "European American" being used for whites. For example, this sentence would bother me: "African Americans suffer much higher poverty rates than whites". Why are we always just "white people"? So, I try changing "whites" to "European Americans", but it gets changed back every time I change it back. Then they say that I'm "vandalizing" (OH, GOD FORBID) and that it has to stay that way because the source says "whites", and that people would confused by the term "European Americans". What a load of horse sh*t. Just because the term "European American" isn't in common use doesn't mean people will be confused by it. White people didn't fall out of the damn sky.

"African, Asian, and European" makes sense. "African, Asian, and white"? That's ridiculous. How bout "black, Asian, and European"? How does that look? Or how bout "African, yellow, and European"? Even more stupid? YES.

F*ck you, Wikipedia. Stay consistent or GTFO.

/rant

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GazaAli

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#13 GazaAli
Member since 2007 • 25216 Posts
Appreciate it. To me its a good "startup" whenever I want to find about something. I can easily locate that something there and then if I got interested I just take it from there and start looking for more.
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nicksonman

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#14 nicksonman
Member since 2009 • 1221 Posts

[QUOTE="Nicksonman"][QUOTE="sonicare"]

It's ok, but it doeshave a lot of subjective information in it. Certain groups with certain agendas seem to editorialize a lot of the entries.

gamerguru100

Agreed. You can have arguments with another user about what's correct. Say you add an entry and someone else thinks it's incorrect. They'll change it. Then you'll change it back. Then they'll change it back again. Eventually you could get a meanish comment from them.

This. It's ALWAYS them that gets the upper hand. Apparently, the content has to be exactly what the source says. Bullsh*t.

I have a pet-peeve where it bothers me when I see the terms "African American", "Asian American", etc. being used but not the term "European American" being used for whites. For example, this sentence would bother me: "African Americans suffer much higher poverty rates than whites". Why are we always just "white people"? So, I try changing "whites" to "European Americans", but it gets changed back every time I change it back. Then they say that I'm "vandalizing" (OH, GOD FORBID) and that it has to stay that way because the source says "whites", and that people would confused by the term "European Americans". What a load of horse sh*t. Just because the term "European American" isn't in common use doesn't mean people will be confused by it. White people didn't fall out of the damn sky.

"African, Asian, and European" makes sense. "African, Asian, and white"? That's ridiculous. How bout "black, Asian, and European"? How does that look? Or how bout "African, yellow, and European"? Even more stupid? YES.

F*ck you, Wikipedia. Stay consistent or GTFO.

/rant

That's screwed up. I don't like the term "whites" either. It's racist. But I can give you an even simpler example. The article for Skyward Sword, under Reception, I wrote the paragraph about Gamespot's view on the game. It's pretty much intact, except I had a line in there that said "Gamespot caused controversy among the online video game community with their review of Skyward Sword". The line got removed, followed by a message "Please, no more silly commentary". Controversy caused by Mc Shea's review was a crucial, crucial part of the game's reception. Gamers and game journos around the world came up everywhere in forums, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and magazines with their opinion and rebuttals on the matter, so why is it not worthy of being mentioned in the wiki article?

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Kelayr

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#15 Kelayr
Member since 2005 • 61857 Posts
Speaking as a user and not a contributor, I find it invaluable to use for casual reading up on just about anything and as a starting point for further research on a subject.
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Sandulf29

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#16 Sandulf29
Member since 2010 • 14330 Posts
Good for digging info and stuff sometimes
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Sedin44

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#17 Sedin44
Member since 2007 • 1171 Posts

Its pretty good for background on anything. Occasionally I do random article feature just to see what pops up. Just can't rely on it as absolute truth at the end of the day.

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the_plan_man

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#18 the_plan_man
Member since 2011 • 1664 Posts
It's a really good site with a lot of information.
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l34052

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#19 l34052
Member since 2005 • 3906 Posts

I thinks its an okay place to start research from and then expand on it elsewhere when you have more of a background knowledge on something, however i would never just read wikipedia and assume thats it as far knowledge or information goes like an awful lot of people seem to do.

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aaronmullan

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#20 aaronmullan
Member since 2004 • 33426 Posts
I enjoy it for media related stuff. Other than that it seems to get a bit iffy.
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#21 deactivated-590595a6292ce
Member since 2008 • 5080 Posts

Gets a lot of my school assignments done.

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PoorEdward

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#22 PoorEdward
Member since 2011 • 287 Posts

I don't rely on it too much, but I sure do love reading random articles every now and then. :)

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EmpCom

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#23 EmpCom
Member since 2005 • 3451 Posts
Mixrd really and has most things it has its + and - points
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Spitfirer

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#24 Spitfirer
Member since 2007 • 2088 Posts

Wikipedia is really good for summarising a lot of complicated mathematical and scientific topics. The articles on arts are usually questionable.

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kraken2109

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#25 kraken2109
Member since 2009 • 13271 Posts

Got me through Secondary School.

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lensflare15

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#26 lensflare15
Member since 2010 • 6652 Posts

It's great for getting quick information and a basic idea of somebody or something.

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gamerguru100

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#27 gamerguru100
Member since 2009 • 12718 Posts

[QUOTE="gamerguru100"]

[QUOTE="Nicksonman"] Agreed. You can have arguments with another user about what's correct. Say you add an entry and someone else thinks it's incorrect. They'll change it. Then you'll change it back. Then they'll change it back again. Eventually you could get a meanish comment from them.Nicksonman

This. It's ALWAYS them that gets the upper hand. Apparently, the content has to be exactly what the source says. Bullsh*t.

I have a pet-peeve where it bothers me when I see the terms "African American", "Asian American", etc. being used but not the term "European American" being used for whites. For example, this sentence would bother me: "African Americans suffer much higher poverty rates than whites". Why are we always just "white people"? So, I try changing "whites" to "European Americans", but it gets changed back every time I change it back. Then they say that I'm "vandalizing" (OH, GOD FORBID) and that it has to stay that way because the source says "whites", and that people would confused by the term "European Americans". What a load of horse sh*t. Just because the term "European American" isn't in common use doesn't mean people will be confused by it. White people didn't fall out of the damn sky.

"African, Asian, and European" makes sense. "African, Asian, and white"? That's ridiculous. How bout "black, Asian, and European"? How does that look? Or how bout "African, yellow, and European"? Even more stupid? YES.

F*ck you, Wikipedia. Stay consistent or GTFO.

/rant

That's screwed up. I don't like the term "whites" either. It's racist. But I can give you an even simpler example. The article for Skyward Sword, under Reception, I wrote the paragraph about Gamespot's view on the game. It's pretty much intact, except I had a line in there that said "Gamespot caused controversy among the online video game community with their review of Skyward Sword". The line got removed, followed by a message "Please, no more silly commentary". Controversy caused by Mc Shea's review was a crucial, crucial part of the game's reception. Gamers and game journos around the world came up everywhere in forums, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and magazines with their opinion and rebuttals on the matter, so why is it not worthy of being mentioned in the wiki article?

It's full of people with agendas. I think I've heard people say it has a liberal bias.
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KiIIyou

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#28 KiIIyou
Member since 2006 • 27204 Posts
There's always some creepy man up top asking me for things whenever I visit there.
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Boston_Boyy

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#29 Boston_Boyy
Member since 2008 • 4103 Posts

It's a site necessary for school, although I do feel like the editors are getting lazier. Sometimes i'll be looking and infomration from what happened in 2010 and 2011 are a lot lighter than 07, 08, and 09.

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Sunfyre7896

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#30 Sunfyre7896
Member since 2011 • 1644 Posts

I don't use it to post anything but I use it quite a bit for looking things up. If I google something and there's a wiki on wikipedia, I always usually go there first as I trust what's on there since b.s. will just get taken down.

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NiKva

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#31 NiKva
Member since 2010 • 8181 Posts
People spread a bunch of lies saying that it's unreliable and can be edited by anyone. Most editing has to be approved before it's posted :/
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SaudiFury

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#32 SaudiFury
Member since 2007 • 8709 Posts

It's ok, but it doeshave a lot of subjective information in it. Certain groups with certain agendas seem to editorialize a lot of the entries.

sonicare
This. check out the discussions tab sometimes you'll see the different bias groups fighting. To me, Wiipedia is a great source for quick references. But if you want to really get into and understand a topic, go get an actual book on it. Preferably one that's written by a professor on the topic, or if it has been peer reviewed.
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MissLibrarian

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#33 MissLibrarian
Member since 2008 • 9589 Posts

The first time I ever heard of Wikipedia I was in a University lecture being told how it was a bunch of un-citedrandomness and if any of us ever dreamed of citing it as a source in our papers we would get an automatic fail.

Consequently I always take all Wiki pages with a pinch of salt, try and verify 'facts' from there before I use them, and besides I've a librarian password that lets me use the Encyclopedia Britannica complete e-resources for free so I tend to just use that anyway.

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Sunfyre7896

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#34 Sunfyre7896
Member since 2011 • 1644 Posts

[QUOTE="Nicksonman"]

[QUOTE="gamerguru100"] This. It's ALWAYS them that gets the upper hand. Apparently, the content has to be exactly what the source says. Bullsh*t.

I have a pet-peeve where it bothers me when I see the terms "African American", "Asian American", etc. being used but not the term "European American" being used for whites. For example, this sentence would bother me: "African Americans suffer much higher poverty rates than whites". Why are we always just "white people"? So, I try changing "whites" to "European Americans", but it gets changed back every time I change it back. Then they say that I'm "vandalizing" (OH, GOD FORBID) and that it has to stay that way because the source says "whites", and that people would confused by the term "European Americans". What a load of horse sh*t. Just because the term "European American" isn't in common use doesn't mean people will be confused by it. White people didn't fall out of the damn sky.

"African, Asian, and European" makes sense. "African, Asian, and white"? That's ridiculous. How bout "black, Asian, and European"? How does that look? Or how bout "African, yellow, and European"? Even more stupid? YES.

F*ck you, Wikipedia. Stay consistent or GTFO.

/rant

gamerguru100

That's screwed up. I don't like the term "whites" either. It's racist. But I can give you an even simpler example. The article for Skyward Sword, under Reception, I wrote the paragraph about Gamespot's view on the game. It's pretty much intact, except I had a line in there that said "Gamespot caused controversy among the online video game community with their review of Skyward Sword". The line got removed, followed by a message "Please, no more silly commentary". Controversy caused by Mc Shea's review was a crucial, crucial part of the game's reception. Gamers and game journos around the world came up everywhere in forums, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and magazines with their opinion and rebuttals on the matter, so why is it not worthy of being mentioned in the wiki article?

It's full of people with agendas. I think I've heard people say it has a liberal bias.

Calling someone white that is white is NOT racist at all. Just like calling someone that's "African American" black is not racist. African American means that someone was born in Africa and moved here and is now a citizen of the U.S. If you're white or black and were born in the U.S., you're just white or black.

People should quit trying to make something racist that isn't and get off the p.c. soapbox. Anytime you add the term 'American after something it means they were born someplace else, like Mexican American would mean a Mexican (Yes, it's ok to say their country of origin) that came and is now a citizen.

I use the terms Hispanic and Asian only as a catch all because there are so many countries within those regions if I don't know someone's country background, but the terms black and white have been used just fine for quite some time. Whites as racist. lol

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judog1

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#35 judog1
Member since 2005 • 24657 Posts
It's useful and the credibility of an article goes up with the amount of citations the page has. I'm not sure how big of an issue vandalism is on there anymore. I'm sure it happens frequently, but anything changed gets reverted back instantly from what I have heard.
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LaytonsCat

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#36 LaytonsCat
Member since 2010 • 3652 Posts

Its good when you want to find something out quickly

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Big_Pecks

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#37 Big_Pecks
Member since 2010 • 5973 Posts

A great and knowledgable resource. I think you need to have a semi-functioning brain to know when Wikipedia is lying.

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Nadoori

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#38 Nadoori
Member since 2008 • 145 Posts
best site on intenet history
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ferrari2001

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#39 ferrari2001
Member since 2008 • 17772 Posts
I think it's a very good source of information.
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Cloud_765

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#40 Cloud_765
Member since 2008 • 111411 Posts
Wikipedia is the s***, bro.
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mingmao3046

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#41 mingmao3046
Member since 2011 • 2683 Posts
i hate how they complain about needing money yet they could be a multi billion dollar company if they just put a few ads on the side of each article..
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sonic__323

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#42 sonic__323
Member since 2007 • 23684 Posts

It's like the most reliable site I ever been on.

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soulless4now

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#43 soulless4now
Member since 2003 • 41388 Posts

I like wikipedia just to get a general idea on some things, like book or movie summaries. It helps me with essays greatly.

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branketra

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#44 branketra
Member since 2006 • 51726 Posts
It's wikipedia. It's good for quick summaries of information, but it's best to do a follow up on a more reliable site.
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DocDelicious

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#45 DocDelicious
Member since 2011 • 410 Posts
Unreliable for the most part.
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Overlord93

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#46 Overlord93
Member since 2007 • 12602 Posts
It's one of the greatest things on the internet, alongside google and youtube etc. Really amazing the amount of information it holds, even on the most unknown subjects. The fact that it's also non profit is also an amazing achievement. You can use pretty much all the information on there for practical use, since it's open to editing you can't cite wiki as the source. But it's not hard to find the citations for the infomation it displays.
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angeldeb82

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#47 angeldeb82
Member since 2005 • 1739 Posts
I hate to bust your bubble, but I have news that Wikipedia will shut down all day tomorrow in protest of SOPA. Jimmy Wales said so himself.
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Ncsoftlover

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#48 Ncsoftlover
Member since 2007 • 2152 Posts

I find it extremely helpful in finding different statistics, rankings, cross comparison between countries in laws, economy and among other things.

It's so helpful for biology too, a genus and a specie name is all I need to type into google, wikipedia almost always pops up, and I find it easy to navigate and generally well organized. It's the quickest way to go from not knowing anything, to get a general picture of something, this apply to just about any subject.

So I'm very thankful that it exist, almost as much as I'm thankful that google exists.

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T_REX305

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#49 T_REX305
Member since 2010 • 11304 Posts

I use it a bit. Did my homework a couple of times.

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DivergeUnify

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#50 DivergeUnify
Member since 2007 • 15150 Posts
Wikipedia is awesome. Sure it's subject to some misinformation, but its a great tool to familiarize yourself with a HUGE amount of topics. Its a great idea and attempt to consolidate a large amount of information in one place