A really poorly done study, yes. It was, if I remember correctly in Nature Magazine. In some cases they compared the full wikipedia article to the summaries of traditional sources which is just a tad biased. Or they did not compare the same types of sources. This was in an issue touting the superiority of the 'hive mind' of wikis(separate from their study). Color me unimpressed with the methodology used in the study. Garbage in, gospel out.
Wikipedia isn't terrible - you can't beat it for pop culture. Its technology articles are also very good. But some items, particularly corporate profiles and biographies are suspect.
Independent studies show that numerous times someone has gone in and changed something in a wikipedia article to suit their own political/personal agenda.
My personal favorites are corporations changing entries - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293389,00.html and founder Jimbo Wales editing his girlfriends entries on wikip. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/03/jimbo_wales_rachel_marsden/
For anything scholarly, Wikipedia should never be your only source (but then again no one reference work should ever be your only source of information).
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2012-01-01 07:44 am (UTC)Wikipedia isn't terrible - you can't beat it for pop culture. Its technology articles are also very good. But some items, particularly corporate profiles and biographies are suspect.
Independent studies show that numerous times someone has gone in and changed something in a wikipedia article to suit their own political/personal agenda.
My personal favorites are corporations changing entries - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293389,00.html and
founder Jimbo Wales editing his girlfriends entries on wikip. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/03/jimbo_wales_rachel_marsden/
For anything scholarly, Wikipedia should never be your only source (but then again no one reference work should ever be your only source of information).