Wikipedia vs Encyclopedia Brittanica

[Andrew Green]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm

The British journal Nature examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and found few differences in accuracy.

 

[Ping898]

I still wouldn't use Wikipedia as the end all and be all of information and for anything truly important would maybe use it as a place to start but as little more than an idea gathering place.

 

[bignick]

Though far be it from me to offer writing advice...if using Wikipedia, I'd advise to mark the date you accessed your information, since it is so dynamic...

 

[Andrew Green]

At a minimum...

I'd reccomend using it for personal research, but if you're going to publish or submit something you'd probably be better finding a more traditional source, no matter how accurate it gets.

Unless they start running it like a open source program, lock down a stable release every year or so and archive it, Changes stay on the development branch until a good level of quality and neutrallity is reached, then send it to a production release. Distribute on DVD or CD.

Until then, with everyone being able to edit, and no one's names attached and most of the material uncited even if it was the most accurate resource out their it still would be a tough one to use as a source for any serious paper.

 

[arnisador]

I find it very useful, but I bear in mind that's it just a web page someone put up. I cringe when I see it quoted in the newspaper.

See also:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051214-5768.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20051215/bs_bw/tc20051214035216

 

[Shirt Ripper]

I find it very useful, but I bear in mind that's it just a web page someone put up. I cringe when I see it quoted in the newspaper.

See also:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20051214-5768.html
http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/20051215/bs_bw/tc20051214035216

Good lord! You've seen that quoted in the paper? That's disturbing.

 

[arnisador]

Sadly, I have seen it used as a reference in one of the Albuquerque papers (both of which are owned by the same company).

 

[BlueDragon1981]

I find it useful and use it a lot. I don't find it much less accurate then many of the others. The others don't want it to be accurate because it is free. I agree though if you are publishing something you want to cite your sources. I would use a traditional source but i still also cite wikipedia. Actually i put everything i used on it even if it was just reading material that matched something else.