Analysis:
In reading Don Fallis's article on Wikipedia, I find it difficult to fully agree or disagree with the claims that are made in the article. I have used Wikipedia myself, but I do not agree with the idea that it can be reliable in an academic setting. Wikipedia can be used for certain things such as surface level investigations as well as minor bits of trivia or information. WIkipedia has provided us with a wealth of information on countless different topics and genres but it does not provide enough scholarly information to give us credible sources to cite in our research reports and scholarly articles. Fallis makes important arguments such as the idea that the masses as a whole are smarter than one individual with "The Wisdom of Crowds" (1670). The concept of a million people being able to form a more complete encyclopedia than one person is an idea that is in theory is definitely true, but with the amount of people that are uneducated in the fields that they choose to talk about on Wikipedia, and the amount of false information that is put on the internet, it makes it so that the information is deemed less reliable. When debating the issue of whether Wikipedia is a source that can be considered credible, scholarly, or even helpful, we must determine what we are looking for as well as what we expect to gain from the website. The website can provide us with different levels of information, some of which is more reliable than others.
Questions to consider:
1) Is Wikipedia providing us with the tools to become more knowledgeable? Or are we simply temporarily gaining the information?
2) Have you ever used Wikipedia for a school related paper or report? Why? Did you cite Wikipedia?
3) To what extent do you think that we can rely on Wikipedia as a reliable source?
Posts
Firstly, I want to comment that throughout school I have always been told never to use Wikipedia--if we wish to use it was a starting off point to get ideas and find other topic words, that's fine, but it is not a scholarly source. However, it surprised me when this semester, my teacher in my Tier II INDV used Wikipedia in his syllabus, and encouraged us to read up Wikipedia articles on the people and topics covered...I even used Wikipedia for straight facts that were covered on the test because the information was not provided in class notes or readings. That was surprising, but came in handy.
ReplyDelete3: I believe that we can rely on Wikipedia for a reliable source, but at our own...risk? I suppose I could use that word. If you are using it to answer a quick question about, say-- a type of insect in Arizona--how much could people be wrong, and how important to you is a reliable answer? In my experience, Wikipedia has never "let me down," when I have looked for a fast answer. But I would never trust it for writing a paper, but mainly because teachers frown upon it. Also, it doesn't give as personal or interesting voice as authors of books or articles, which the lack of I find rather sad, I enjoy personal style in writing vs. straight facts.
I’ve never honestly used Wikipedia for a report. My schools have also always been against the use of the online encyclopedia and therefore I’ve been taught that it’s not an accurate source to use. However, for my own benefit when surfing the web for information, a lot of times I’ll read and trust what Wikipedia has to say. I also think that it’s useful to go to the bottom of Wikipedia and click on the sources they’ve listed and use those instead. I would never cite Wikipedia, however, because I feel as if I would be judged and therefore wouldn’t get a good grade because of using it.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think that Wikipedia’s actual articles aren’t reliable. Although Fallis argues that it is because of studies showing how quick errors are found or their errors being smaller than those of Britannica, I feel that a collective encyclopedia of this magnitude could never fully be monitored or completely correct. I also agree with Waters in that the people who comprise the collective memory are from too broad of an intelligence range to provide completely accurate information.
Wikipedia, for me, has been a quick way to find clarification in a reading or concept. Since I had no idea what Panoptocism was and didn’t feel as though I grasped it within the reading, I used Wikipedia for simplification. To some extent I feel that Wikipedia can be useful and accurate. As far as research papers or dissertations or anything of that caliber, there are an abundance of more trustworthy sites. Wikipedia is a great summary or surface explainer. However, it does not contain any primary resources. It is an honest cite that makes it known that not all work uploaded is deemed factual, which personally helps with their credibility. Some less known sites may be fully deceitful and one would never know unless they verified the information. We cannot discredit the fact that Wikipedia is a well known community regardless of any individuals reliance on the website. As mentioned within the reading, anyone educated enough with a computer and search engine usage knows Wikipedia is the most common returned cite of relevance whether it is used simply for definition or historical information.
ReplyDelete3: I'd like to start off by saying that I am a strong advocate of using Wikipedia for base knowledge. However, I'd like to reiterate, like what everyone above has said, that Wikipedia should only be used for "surface knowledge" as Rachel said. I disagree with Olivia's statement that Wikipedia articles just aren't reliable, because for me it has always been reliable. I can always reference Wikipedia when I need a concise, easy-to-read explanation. They are reliable in the sense that correct information is going to be posted almost all of the time, and even when the system has it's slip ups with fake information, the moderators are quick to correct them. I have tested this numerous times by trying to inaccurately change various articles and they are always corrected within hours. However, I still don't think Wikipedia should be used as a scholarly source. Just as Waters said, with so many anonymous contributors, it does seem counterintuitive that those articles will all be accurate. No longer are there experts in the field on Wikipedia, because anyone can contribute, regardless of their knowledge in the respective field. But if just used for general, summated information, Wikipedia is the way to go and can be considered a reliable source, but for a scholarly piece, you do not want to consider Wikipedia a reliable source when so many can contribute to it and update it at any time.
ReplyDeleteExample: If I were to ask what acrophobia was... the simplest way to find out is to wiki it to get a general idea. But if this were for a scholarly article, you'd want to do some more research and get more in-depth, credible sources to define it.
In respect to Zach’s argument I’d like to continue mine in that Wikipedia isn’t reliable. According to dictionary.com, the definition of reliable is something “that may be relied on; dependable in achievement, accuracy, honesty, etc”. Yes, it is correct that most of Wikipedia’s article malfunctions are monitored and corrected, according to Zach “within a few hours”. However, this problem will always exist with Wikipedia because of its inability to monitor such a broad spectrum of contributors. Wikipedia can be argued against the definition of reliable-it will never be completely dependable, nor accurate and honest. Unless of course the ability to manage the large information is invented or introduced. The errors will be fixed eventually, if caught, however what if while surfing you came across an article in between the two hours in which it was incorrect? What if the material was that of which you weren’t able to recognize the obvious error?
ReplyDeleteI will continue to use this source, as most of us do, as REFERENCE to other places that have a more precise and reliable definition of different things. I do trust Wikipedia most of the time, I just feel as if it can never truly be reliable.
2. I realized that I have used wikipedia for a project. In my high school speech class, we had to collect facts on a topic so that we could debate either side. Wikipedia was a great source for fast facts. In order to cite it, in debates and forensics you can use "common knowledge," as a source, which is like using neutral facts that would be considered common sense in an argument. Almost like common sense or public domain. I trusted Wikipedia, and our teacher did not question the information.
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ReplyDeleteWell, if you want to go by the definition, then can we ever trust anything as completely reliable? I find it surprising that just because anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, that automatically makes in unreliable. Most consider the Britannica Encyclopedia series to be very reliable and I guarantee that most, if not all, teachers would accept Britannica as a scholarly and reliable source. However, according to their site, Wikipedia has a similar amount of "serious error" rate as Britannica. Other news journals and articles have confirmed this as well (CNET). I understand that accepting WIkipedia as a reliable source seems counterintuitive because anyone can contribute, but Britannica could be considered just as unreliable because of the amount of errors that it contains as well. I will agree that Wikipedia should only be used as a reference for information, however, I just want to make sure that people realize Britannica, as well as other printed encyclopedia series and widely accepted sources, aren't as reliable as people at first realize (check the links below!).
ReplyDeleteAlso, the beauty of Wikipedia is that these errors can be fixed immediately, but how quickly can supposedly reliable printed sources be updated?
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/12/5768.ars
This was another excellent thread by your group--I love your well informed discussions about what makes information reliable.
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