Thursday, January 17, 2013
Can Wikipedia be trusted?
Elder Oaks had it right when he said information is widely available for everyone. I had to do a study on Wikipedia a couple semesters ago back when I was in English 316 where we put up articles that were only 40% accurate (or roughly to that degree). By the end of the semester the articles for the class came out to be about 98% accurate, which is oddly enough more accurate than the Encyclopedia Britannica, which tends to be around 94% accurate. I totally agree that Wikipedia shouldn't be the only source used when trying to find relevant information on a certain topic, but I don't see the problem with using it as a source to find other sources. It's being updated almost constantly, and contains a ridiculous amount of information, that for the most part, is accurate and true.
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Your post makes me think of Wikipedia as an average of mankind's knowledge. With an average, the more samples we take into account, the closer our average tends towards the correct value. Similarly, the more people we have contributing to Wikipedia, the more likely the information is going to be correct.
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