Talk:Reliability of Wikipedia

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To-do list for Reliability of Wikipedia: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:
  • Expand:
    • Expand lead a little bit - three detailed paragraphs would be good for an article of this length.
    • Should there be something on Wikipedia assessment of itself - e.g. the assessment scheme, WikiProjects, featured articles, peer review etc?
    • Find references where called for
    • Other:
    • Discuss changing the subject (or just the name) of the article to something a bit broader (e.g. quality of Wikipedia, quality and comprehensiveness of Wikipedia, evaluation of Wikipedia, assessment of Wikipedia, appraisal of Wikipedia, perspectives on Wikipedia, reception of Wikipedia etc) (reliability being a more narrow subject, see Talk:Reliability of Wikipedia#Article name). Discuss overlap with criticism of Wikipedia and clarify the scope of the two articles.
Priority 4  

Contents

[edit] Wikipedia namespace

Do you think this article should be moved to Wikipedia:Reliability? It seems more like the kind of thing that should be in there.
FLaRN (talk) 20:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Not really. I considered it but in fact, it is an article material. Its not a collection of Wikipedia quotes or anything arbitrary, or a collection of media quotes. In the same way that an article on some software might have a "Criticisms of X" subtopic, or some diagnostic test might have a "Reliability of diagnostic test X" subtopic, the article on Wikipedia has a legitimate subtopic covering Wikipedia's own reliability. That article should be sourced, verifiable, neutral, and so on, and cover both majority and significant-minority views and their evidence, as well as touch on its own related matters, and that's what this article does. Articles such as Wikipedia quotes, clippings, projects, strategies, management, and the like, belong in the Wikipedia: namespace. FT2 (Talk | email) 05:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

"A rough consensus seems to emerge from librarian and academic reviewers that although there is skepticism, Wikipedia is considered even by skeptics to be a valuable resource, that it is on the whole accurate and objective"

Talk about POV. For what it's worth I find that 99% of articles don't cite sources. This is blatant politics and should be removed. Mglovesfun 03:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

When I researched and wrote the article, I looked up every source I could find, where an authenticated seemingly-reputable librarian appreared to have formally stated a view of some significance on the subject. This included reviewing guidance issued by college librarians on Wikipedia's use and their perceptions. These are documented in the section under librarian views, and that statement is a concise summary of the views which emerged. The subject of this article is Reliability of Wikipedia, and for that purpose it cites its sources fully, and with care. If theres evidence otherwise it would be useful to read it. And also, views (like everything) can change over time. FT2 (Talk | email) 05:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is it just me or

Is it just me or does this article seem unreliable?Sabrebattletank 07:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It's actually pretty carefully researched. If there are material inaccuracies or misrepresentations then bring them to the talk page or correct them. "Seems unreliable" doesn't really seem to say much other than to indicate that the reader has not gone to the trouble of checking for him/herself. FT2 (Talk | email) 05:41, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry. Bad joke.Sabrebattletank 22:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Kinda funny, but no the article is fine. --SpartaGeek23 (talk) 19:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Certain subject matter and reliability

I suspect that Wikipedia's reliability depends on the topic you are reading about. For instance if the nature study is to be believed Wikipedia is a reasonably accurate and reliable source for scientific articles. However the philosophical articles are widely agreed by the editors belonging to the Wikiproject philosophy to be a nightmare of factual inaccuracy and confusion created by amateurs with little or no formal study of philosophy. Personally I believe that the more abstract a topic is, the more likely inaccuracy will be present. Additionally complex topics with many conceptual intricacies that are nevertheless deeply interesting to many members of the public ( such as Philosophy). Using philosophy as an example again it's notable that drier philosophical topics which would attract few non specialists who don't work in related fields, like the philosophy of logic, seem to be more accurate and trample over less technical distinctions than topics such as arguments for and against the existence of God.

Could we discuss differences in reliability between topics in the article?

Sure, sounds good. Go for it. Sabrebattletank 19:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course, use reliable sources to do it. Note that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, so nothing published here counts. I know there was also a review of historical topics that someone published. GRBerry 23:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd really like to see a study on the quality of wikipedia articles excluding those less than one year old, or something like that. I'd imagine the results would be high on the side of reliability, but I'd really like to know. MulletManDan 20:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] College professor's remarks

I go to Middle Tennessee State University, and one of the professors, a man who taught the subject of Global History, stated that Wikipedia should not be used as a dependable source; his reasons why were the choppyness of the articles; the fact that anyone without credentials, or even an education, can edit the pages; the way a lot of it is written, i.e. in 5th Grade English or worse.

In a way, that professor is right in that there needs to be more professionalism (not necessarily credentials) in how an article is written and presented. But I don't believe that Wikipedia should be a sub-standard reference work, and I don't believe Wikipedia should be ignored as far as research and authoritativeness goes. I think everyone who writes in should do their utmost to ensure a standard of excellence here. And if some sitting professors still think otherwise...perhaps Wikipedia should consider and encourage them to write their own articles on any given subject, which will make Wikipedia better still. Carajou 06:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I teach English Composition at a college in upstate New York. As far as Wikipedia is concerned, I tell my students I will take one whole letter grade off their papers for every Wikipedia citation that appears. Research is only good as the quality and accountability of the sources and the authors, both of which are lacking with Wikipedia. -- Jango Davis 12:30 (UTC), 19 February 2007.

Obviously Wikipedia should never be used as a primary source... it's a secondary source that only cites other material. At best it can be used to find references. Reliability has nothing to do with it; encyclopedia articles in general are not suitable as references, and this is certainly the case here. Richard001 08:56, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I have used Wikipedia as the only source for many of my grade school projects, and my teachers have authorized Wikipedia as an "Internet Source". Depending on the teacher and your source requirments, I think Wikipedia should be considerd as "reliable". At the bottom, the references for the article are listed. Cross-referencing can prove the sources reliable, as well as the fact most of the time someone repairs the articles becasue of vandalism or false or biased opinions. --SpartaGeek23 (talk) 20:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Conspiracy Theories

I don't think this new addition actually informs readers in any way upon the factual reliability of Wikipedia. It at most says "an uncited and un-numbered minority think there could be bias due to conspiracy theories".

But this article is about assessing bias, and doesn't particularly dwell on speculated causes (real or otherwise). The testers of bias are academics, librarians and other commentators on the online information world, and their views are given. I'm thinking that a section "Some people think there is a conspiracy theory" doesn't add any notable substantial content.

I am minded to think it can be removed as not adding to the article. If needed try a separate article, "Conspiracy theories about Wikipedia", if there are any, and they are notable.

Thoughts? FT2 (Talk | email) 15:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no objection; I thought I was being fairly charitable in just slapping the {{unreferenced}} tag onto it. GRBerry 16:35, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I removed it. There's no problem with having a paragraph on that subject, if reliable sources can be found and cited. However, the paragraph would probably be better suited to Criticism of Wikipedia – Qxz 03:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-elitism

Here are examples of anti-elitism attitudes by Wikipedia editors:

“Just because you can recite the defense by heart doesn't mean you know more then me.” TripleH1976 User talk:196.15.168.40 (that discussion seems to have been removed recently)

“He's able to recite the date of court testimony and who made them. He knows the numbers of the state evidence.” Fighting for Justice Talk:David_Westerfield/Archive2 (in the Notes section)

None of that was intended as praise, and it reveals an antagonism towards people who are knowledgeable about the subject. That can discourage experts and is not conducive to reliable articles.196.2.56.5 04:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Missing reference

The first instance of the reference for the March 2006 Information Today seems to have been deleted at some point, resulting in a blank entry in the reference list. In the current revision of the article as I write this, it is reference #12 in the list. (It's also ref name="informationtoday".) Is there any way to find this other than going through the history edit-by-edit? Iknowyourider (t c) 07:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Fraid not. The other way of sorting this out is to find the original article. Google news might help. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:41, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Coverage statments are tchnically correct but wrong

In the coverage section it states that the article for Hurricane frances is longer than the article for Chinese Art and that the article for Corronation street is longer than that of tony blair.

While technically true, the article of chinese art has a "History" section which is part of a main artical called History of Chinese art which is longer than both the stub article on chinese art and the one on hurricane frances. A simmilar situation with the Tony Blair article is that many of the sections lead to main articles that are much longer.

In Addition it states that the Hurricane Fraces article is five times the length of Chinese art, althoug it may have been true at the time of writing it is no longer accurate. The huricane artical is no longer than twice that of Chinese Art.

I consider these statements to be both wrong (in some respects) and to be based on technicalities which throw the valididty of the point they are attempting to make into question. I suggest that they are removed from the article.

It's a quote, and the non-up-to-dateness of it is pointed out. Richard001 10:11, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

Reliability seems to imply accuracy, at least mainly. Coverage and comprehensiveness is another matter. Perhaps this should be renamed 'Quality of Wikipedia'? Richard001 10:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Upon slightly more reflection, I think it might even be a good idea to merge this with criticism of Wikipedia. There is a lot of overlap here. If we change the subject to quality, the overlap increases. It's still not complete, of course. Criticism is only looking at the negative aspects (which I think should be avoided when you can have an article that looks at both the good and bad (e.g. I've suggested costs and benefits of recycling is better than criticism of recycling). If we had an article that discussed the good and bad qualities of Wikipedia—its merit as an encyclopedia—that would basically encompass both articles, allowing them to be merged. What to call it? Perhaps strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia, or something like that?
But even if you disagree with my mergism, I still think broadening this to 'quality of' rather than 'reliability of' is a good move. Richard001 (talk) 07:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, thinking about the term 'quality', it doesn't really cover comprehensiveness much more than reliability, does it? Perhaps something like quality and comprehensiveness of Wikipedia. Reliability is a subset of quality (quality includes, e.g. quality of prose, as well as factual accuracy), but quality itself doesn't include comprehensiveness. Wikipedia could have 100 of the best encyclopedia articles ever written, but it wouldn't be very comprehensive. What I feel this article is trying to discuss is the overall 'goodness' of Wikipedia - its quality and its quantity. Is there a more natural word for this, though?
Edit: Perhaps evaluation of Wikipedia is what I'm looking for. Richard001 (talk) 07:47, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Review

I'm having a go at cleanup on this article, so far all cirtes are now in CITE WEB format and correctly noted, and a couple of flow improvements in the intro.

FT2 (Talk | email) 01:25, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

The second paragraph of 'Coverage' closely mimics the last few lines of 'Reliability in other contexts' just above. 82.153.143.213 21:32, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikis truthfulness

Hi, I was on Wikipedia to find out who appointed Louis Freeh to "Director of the FBI" to find that this information is omitted, while the information of who appointed him to "U.S. District Court Judge" is given.
Figure out yourself why Wikipedia states the relative unimportant information of who appointed Frey to U.S. District Court Judge (there seem to be over 250 district court judgeships) while omitting the information of who appointed him to the much more important position of Director of the FBI. (hint : it was Bill Clinton)
It seems that Wikipedia is infested with "left-wing" ideologues (who else would suppress such information) and either tolerates them or has not found a way to get rid of them, in either case they make a joke of Wikipedia´s aspiration to be an Encyclopedia.
Some Encyclopedia, omitting who appointed Frey to director of the FBI!!
Can I trust Wikipedia with the value of the constant pi, or has that also received the caring attention of some "politically correct" editor? Werner

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.210.92.136 (talk) 13:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Although I doubt that the person who wrote the comment above will ever see this response, I just have a comment for those who may stumble across this (as I did.) The basic comment is, Wikipedia has many articles that aren't perfect. It is very easy to fix them, or if you don't know how or don't have the information, you can ask for someone else to fix them. (In this case, the answer to "who appointed Freeh as FBI director" could have been ascertained by anyone who knows who was President of the U.S. in September 1993, but in an ideal world, readers of Wikipedia should not have to do that sort of math for themselves.) The one thing a reader should not do is assume that information is missing from an article for some nefarious reason. In some cases, articles are the subjects of disputes and "edit wars" and the information may have been deleted intentionally, but in this case, it looks like it was just deleted sometime during the editing process. (The first version of the article did say who appointed Freeh.) In any event, I have now inserted the information so that the next high school student who comes across the article while doing a research paper (if you'll excuse the assumption) will find the information and not leap to the conclusion that there was a left-wing (or right-wing or middle-wing) conspiracy to keep the data out of the article. (Why a "left-wing ideologue" would want to keep this particular fact off Wikipedia, I am not certain, but there are a lot of things in the world that I don't understand.) I also found that the article had a number of other little issues that needed to be fixed, and I fixed the ones that were easily fixable. (See Louis Freeh.) If you want to talk about something that makes Wikipedia look bad, how about the fact that the first sentence of the article did not have a period at the end of it? Anyway, that's how Wikipedia works. 6SJ7 15:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Essay

I have written an essay about assessing the reliability of different articles. I was hoping to get other editors to review, add to it and edit it. Currently, it is in my userspace at User:Billscottbob/Assessing reliability. Thanks for any input you may have. If you have anything you wish to discuss about it please do not discuss it here. Please discuss it on the talk page of the essay. Billscottbob (talk) 02:07, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] More info on the studies

If someone knows the answer to this question and they can add it to the article, that would be great. As I read this page, I wonder, "When Encarta, Wikipedia and Brittanica were studied, did the test subjects know WHICH encyclopedia they were reading from?" Because that can be an important question in determining bias. For example, if I believe that Encarta is a reliable reference and Wikipedia is not a reliable reference, then, as I read the Wikipedia article, I am more likely to find errors. Because I expect Wikipedia to have errors, I am more likely to find them. However, if I don't know which article comes from Encarta and which article comes from Wikipedia, then my research is not biased. Maurajbo (talk) 01:26, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Humor

I'm sorry if this doesn't go here, but the irony of this article is incredible! Not that I disagree with anything mentioned in this article, but it's just that -- the irony! Here we are, discussing the reliability of Wikipedia ... in a Wikipedia entry. This article made my day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.132.199.10 (talk) 08:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I suppose it's a little like the liar paradox. If we say we're unreliable, you shouldn't believe us. And if we say we are, how do you know we're not just saying that? Well, I guess you have see to base your judgment on the references don't you? Richard001 (talk) 07:10, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image

If images were water, this page is a dry, dry desert. What can we add? I've suggested a screenshot showing vandalism on the to do list. But since this article, at least currently, is concerned with 'reliability', page blanking etc wouldn't qualify. I think something like a diff screenshot would be good, though a screenshot of the vandalized page would also be okay. Can anyone provide any suggestions, or comments, on this head? Any other suggestions for images are also welcome, or, if you like, be italic [sic] and add one yourself. Richard001 (talk) 07:25, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] New source

I found another source that might contain information useful for this article:

  • "Hackers, Plagiarism Claims Hit Wikipedia; A critic claimed he found dozens of instances of plagiarism in the online encyclopedia, and the site was infected with a worm." (11/06/2006). InformationWeek. 

69.140.152.55 (talk) 01:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, the following website mentions an article that passed WP:GAN even though it was about a totally non-notable theory:

This was not so much vandalism as a physician using Wikipedia to publish his new theory, instead of traditional peer-reviewed journals. (Possibly the only time that an article ever went directly from WP:GA to WP:AFD?)
69.140.152.55 (talk) 02:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)