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blamebrampton ([personal profile] blamebrampton) wrote2011-01-17 09:11 pm
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Oh young people ...

I caught a news snippet while rushing to get dressed this morning. It was on the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia, and the journalist was interviewing a schoolboy who looked about 17. He told her that he used Wikipedia regularly and found it to be a good source. When the journalist asked him about the varying credibility and skill of Wikipedia contributors, he stared in wide-eyed horror.

After a moment, he replied, 'Well, I've only just found out about that. I thought that there was a central place it all came from where everything was checked! This is big news. I am going to have to think about this at length!'

Twelve hours later, I have nearly stopped giggling.
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(Anonymous) 2011-01-18 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
Well while a lot of people are chortling and sniggering here I think you need to think about this. It really depends on what you are researching. For example I had to do a uni assignment on the on-line response to the release of Halo 3. It was required that I use the Halo 3 wiki and the online comments from wikipedia to justify my comments about the online response. So I had to use wikipediea and comment on it.

There are also many other wiki's that are not wikipedeia that are set up for companies and for particular programs, events, situation etc where the information that they use is more up to date than books are because they change so often and where the wiki is more useful as a source than anything else.

So while I agree that wikipedia should not be used as a sole source and should not be used all the time there is a time and a place for it and sometimes wikipedia is the best place for information. It depends on what you are researching.

[identity profile] tinofbeans.livejournal.com 2011-01-18 02:47 am (UTC)(link)
Sorry that was not meant to be anonymous.

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2011-01-18 02:53 am (UTC)(link)
Oops! Replied to your accidental anon ...

[identity profile] blamebrampton.livejournal.com 2011-01-18 02:52 am (UTC)(link)
You make a good point that there are some things Wiki does do well. Their popular culture pages are at once the most likely to be up to date and comprehensive and the most likely to contain hoax information or be opinionated, though. If it is used as a first point of information gathering, it can be great, but if people stop there, we end up with the regularly dead Jeff Goldblum syndrome.

Other Wikis that are not run from Wikipedia are a different beast and there are several quite good ones, I agree with you there.
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