[aldo_14]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4840340.stm

A study on the accuracy of the free online resource Wikipedia by the prestigious journal Nature has been described as "fatally flawed".

The report, published in December last year, compared the accuracy of online offerings from Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia.

Nature found that both were about as accurate as each other on science.

Encyclopaedia Britannica has hit back at the findings, calling for the paper to be retracted.

In a document on its website, Encyclopaedia Britannica said that the Nature study contained "a pattern of sloppiness, indifference to basic scholarly standards, and flagrant errors so numerous they completely invalidated the results".

The scholarly slanging match prompted an equally robust response from Nature.

"We reject those accusations, and are confident our comparisons are fair," it said in a statement.

Nature said it did not intend to retract the original article.

Online collaboration

The original study was conducted by the Nature news team. They asked a number of scientists to assess 50 pairs of articles from relative newcomer Wikipedia and from the well established encyclopaedia.

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and is based on wikis, open-source software which allows anyone to edit, add, delete, or replace an entry. It relies on volunteer contributors to update its pages.

Topics in the Nature study were as diverse as the Archimedes Principle and Dolly the sheep. The reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about the source of the information.

The study found only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, four from each encyclopaedia.

However, Nature also claimed to have found other factual errors: 162 in Wikipedia and 123 in Britannica.

Wikipedia criticisms

Although the longer established encyclopaedia does not claim to be error free, it said that the research "grossly exaggerated Britannica's inaccuracies" and that according to the figures "Britannica was far more accurate than Wikipedia".

In a lengthy document, it went on to rebut more than 50 specific points raised in the study.

Following the Nature study, both Wikipedia and the Britannica made corrections to some of their entries.

Late last year, Wikipedia came under fire for the accuracy of its articles.

In particular, prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler attacked an entry that incorrectly named him as a suspect in the assassinations of President John F Kennedy and his brother, Robert.

The false information was the work of Tennessean Brian Chase, who said he was trying to trick a co-worker.

Wikipedia responded to the criticisms by tightening up procedures.

[Grug]

LoL at the google ads going wild.

Interesting though. Though you'd expect errors in both forms but probably more in the wikipedia due to public access and abuse.
Then again, Encyclopedia Britannica's attitude seemed stereotypical as well.

[Fragrag]

Why are they complaining? Just open the edit page and fix it...

[BlackDove]

It's fatally flawed because it's open knowledge, and therefore can't be controlled by assholes who administrate the then-be normal sources of knowledge.

[aldo_14]

Why are they complaining? Just open the edit page and fix it...

Rather daft, that.  What use is wikipedia in that context for someone who wishes to look up information they don't already know?  I mean, they don't sell encyclopedias with tippex and a pen, do they?

[WMCoolmon]

Apparently, no one involved has seen Disney's remake of The Computer who Wore Tennis Shoes.

[Styxx]

No encyclopedia can be used as a final source of information. All of them have errors, and Wikipedia is bound to have more simply because it has so much more content than any other, even if it wasn't edited collaboratively. It's still largely accurate and reliable in most of the cases, so it's a good enough starting point for me.

[karajorma]

The problem is that an encyclopedia is only as good as the worst entry in it. Not the best. I'd bet that the worst entry in Britannica is miles ahead of the worst entry in Wikipedia.


Wikipedia is a good starting point I'll agree but if you have access to it Britannica is probably better if you're looking for something that they both cover.

[StratComm]

Wikipedia also has the inherent advantage of being up to date more than any paper encyclopedia ever could.  If something changes about a topic, Wikipedia will reflect that change quickly, where as, say, Britannica just goes out of date.  No encyclopedia should be used as a be-all, end-all source of information, and for a stepping stone Wikipedia is as good as any.

[aldo_14]

Wikipedia also has the inherent advantage of being up to date more than any paper encyclopedia ever could.  If something changes about a topic, Wikipedia will reflect that change quickly, where as, say, Britannica just goes out of date.  No encyclopedia should be used as a be-all, end-all source of information, and for a stepping stone Wikipedia is as good as any.

Albiet wikipedia can also be made inaccurate far more easily and quickly than any other reference source, and is more likely to suffer from deliberate tampering.  So it's also an inherent drawback to have an open and easy method of editing it.

[BlackDove]

The problem is that an encyclopedia is only as good as the worst entry in it.

That's not true nor are any single entries intertwined with the rest of the Encyclopedia. The fantastic entries manage to be a great source of information wholely without any bad ones ruining them.

[aldo_14]

The problem is that an encyclopedia is only as good as the worst entry in it.

That's not true nor are any single entries intertwined with the rest of the Encyclopedia. The fantastic entries manage to be a great source of information wholely without any bad ones ruining them.

Consider what the point of an encyclopedia is; is it not a universal reference to anything and even everything?  In that case, is it not going to be hamstrung by the worst entry, as it sets the lowest expectation of accuracy?  Can you trust an encyclopdia as a source of general knowledge if you know it to have some entries that are wholly inaccurate, but don't have the knowledge to recognise (and, in the case of Wikipedia, correct) them?

[BlackDove]

No encyclopedia EVER was universal enough to find references to "anything" and "everything".

The worst entry reflects the accuracy of that entry alone, not of the other entries, as Wikipedia continually proves so.

We can all be generalistic philosophers, but in practice, it just doesn't amount to that.

If we are to consider the regular encyclopedia with a set amount of continuous people editing it, and something being off as far as articles go, then yes, you would be correct. But Wikipedia is edited by what? Millions of people? It has the chance to be edited as many people as that at any rate. And most of them aren't even relating with one article to another. Unfortunately, beside the similarity regarding the fact that it is an encyclopedia and it offers similar information - the two are not to be compared.

[karajorma]

But without any way to know who is doing the editing how can you know that the last person to edit the entry didn't enter a load of inaccurate bull**** instead of actual useful information.

Look at the entry on FreeSpace and the claim that most people think of Inferno as an unofficial FS3 for an example of that.

Good entries can be dragged down to being terrible entries very quickly by that sort of activity and you'd never know. On the other hand if you don't ever see any terrible entries it means that the quality control is working and catching tards who fill in crap like the Inferno comment.

[BlackDove]

But that's a given - it's the obvious flaw of the system. As long as you know that, you will be prone (if you're intelligent enough) to filtration and perhaps even *gasp* actually seeing some things for yourself. For example, if I read that someone was talking about Inferno being FS3, I'd come to check it out, and after seeing what it was, I'd figure that entry on the Wiki to be completely and utterly false.

Of COURSE there are drawbacks to this system, but again, there are also drawbacks to the other system as well. You take the good with the bad. For me, the benefits outweigh the cons and the benefits of the opposing system. That may not be the case for others, but again, it's opinion and taste.

Especially when we consider stuff like this:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page

The entire game's information is stored there. All I've tested and followed was 95% true, and it cut a HELL of a lot of time, what with its 12 000 articles. Yes, there were inaccuracies. Of course, it isn't pefect. So for example, while I was doing one mission, I followed it, got to a point where the info was valid, then got stuck, asked ingame, found out some things were updated in the last patch, then I acted accordingly ingame, deleted the outdated entry and put the new correct pathway to achieving the mission. I doubt I'd find that, or the ability to rectify a possible inaccuracy in Britannica.

We all know the default. Arguing further pro or against is just simply subjective.

[aldo_14]

But that's a given - it's the obvious flaw of the system. As long as you know that, you will be prone (if you're intelligent enough) to filtration and perhaps even *gasp* actually seeing some things for yourself. For example, if I read that someone was talking about Inferno being FS3, I'd come to check it out, and after seeing what it was, I'd figure that entry on the Wiki to be completely and utterly false.

But why would you want to edit it?  Me, if a reference source is inaccurate, I discard it.  What's the use of an encyclopedia that only knows as much as you do?  Wikipedia is a useful resource, and a good idea, but let's not delude ourselves here into thinking that the ability to correct something (just as easily as to deface) automatically makes it reliable or 'good'; it's really only useful when the sources are quoted, which IMO makes it more of an aggregator than encyclopedia.  The whole reason it was compared to the Encyclopedia Brittanica was, after all, because the EB is a commercial publication and that means it has a responsibility (for purely financial reasons if nothing else) to be reliable, and a set of authors who are known and accountable.

Besides which, the Inferno reference is IIRC that the Wikipedia says/said the community considered Inferno as canon; how is anyone outside the community going to be able to state that with any accuracy (and we can't verify whether they can)?

[karajorma]

But that's a given - it's the obvious flaw of the system. As long as you know that, you will be prone (if you're intelligent enough) to filtration and perhaps even *gasp* actually seeing some things for yourself. For example, if I read that someone was talking about Inferno being FS3, I'd come to check it out, and after seeing what it was, I'd figure that entry on the Wiki to be completely and utterly false.

Thing is that if that's the case why should I bother with Wikipedia at all? If you're claiming that someone who doesn't know Freespace has to find the community and double check every single fact to make certain that it's correct then the question becomes why bother at all? Why not simply start with a google search and go directly to the source?

Encyclopedia's exist in order to be able to get a quick reference on a subject. If you're claiming that wikipedia can't do that then you're also claiming that it fails in its primary goal.

I personally don't believe that that is true but if you have to check up every fact in wikipedia then it is.

Especially when we consider stuff like this:

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page

That's completely irrelevant to this discussion. No one was discussing wiki's. The discussion was on whether you could expand the concept to having one giant wiki that attempts to explain everything.
 The link is to a wiki about a specialist subject rather than a broad encyclopedia that attempts to cover everything. As a result it's likely that the editors know the subject in depth and as a result can edit any misinformation out themselves. This is not true for wikipedia.

Furthermore this only goes to support my point that an encyclopedia (or in this case a wiki) is only as good as the worst subject matter. I doubt you're going to claim that the best entry on that page is better than the best one on Wikipedia. The worst article however probably is better than the worst one on Wikipedia though simply due to the editors familiarity with the subject matter.

The reason that makes that wiki such a good source of info is the quality of its worst entries.

[Prophet]

Why don't we just write "DON'T PANIC" in big friendly letters on the Wikipedia main page and move on. Agreed?

[Mefustae]

Hmmm, I wonder what truly is the worst page of the Wiki...

[WMCoolmon]

Hmmm, I wonder what truly is the worst page of the Wiki...

I've seen it.