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Jimmy Wales Says Students 'Should Use' Wikipedia
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Dec 08, 2007 01:41 AM
from the taking-himself-too-seriously dept.
from the taking-himself-too-seriously dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC has up an article chatting with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Wales views the Wikipedia site as an educational resource, and apparently thinks teachers who downplay the site are 'bad educators'. '[A] perceived lack of authority ... has drawn criticism from other information sources. Ian Allgar of Encyclopedia Britannica maintains that, with 239 years of history and rigorous fact-checking procedures, Britannica should remain a leader in authoritative, politically-neutral information. Mr Allgar pointed out the trustworthy nature of paid-for, thoroughly-reviewed content, and noted that Wikipedia is still prone to vandalism.'"
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Submission: Students 'should use Wikipedia' by Anonymous Coward
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Not a spec of Bias. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well color me surprised at the answers.
Next interview (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Not a spec of Bias. (Score:4, Insightful)
I've been caught up in the anti-wikipedia controversy lately. I'm still a very happy and frequent contributor/user and so I'm all the more concerned when I hear about overt manipulations that occur at the very top by a core group who (except for Jimbo himself) hide behind their usernames and are completely anonymous. That adds to the grain of salt I have from the subtle sources of bias that can creep in.
So, no, I don't consider Wikipedia to be sourceable, certainly not at the university level, perhaps not even at the high school level. Instead, you should use wikipedia as a starting point in your research, maybe going to the references in the articles you find. But as the recent controversy shows, you can't just stop there. You need to really hunt around for opposing viewpoints that might be intentionally suppressed.
At the graduate level, using wikipedia does more harm than good-- it biases your thinking without providing you with depth. At that level, you should already have the overview of the topic anyway. Instead you really should use traditional research techniques and bypass Wikipedia altogether.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure they should, sorta (Score:5, Insightful)
Students should definitely use Wikipedia as a good place to find real sources. Of course, if they actually cite it, they're freakin' insane and should go back and re-learn how to research.
Re:Sure they should, sorta (Score:5, Interesting)
It also depends on your point of view if you think that some information is correct or not.
And don't forget - Wikipedia may actually contain original information from time to time and that's worth to consider. Just because some abuses the tool doesn't mean that the tool is useless. On the contrary - it means that the tool is actually useful enough to draw the interest of abusers. The only catch is to identify the abusers.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia policy is to not contain original information [wikipedia.org], so you shouldn't be looking for it there.
Re:Sure they should, sorta (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
rubish... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no way referencing Wikipedia is OK. It's not peer reviewed. Not only is the information often wrong, but the information it does has is very biased (which is OK - all information is biased, but you need to see the whole range). Referencing Wikipedia is like saying "Some random guy on the internet once said...". Not exactly a lot of weight.
But using Wikipedia for a starting point - that's a good thing to do. When researching a new subject, I will often read Wikipedia for initial information, and use the sources it cites as a starting point.
Re:rubish... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Peer review (Score:4, Interesting)
You're kidding... right?
Just in case you're not, you might want to read about peer review [wikipedia.org] (at Wikipedia, of all places) as you don't seem to have a clue what it is...
Wikipedia can misappropriate the term "peer review" for itself all it wants, but that doesn't make it peer reviewed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I'm sorry.. what? Wikipedia isn't peer reviewed?
Before having a go at me - learn what peer review is. Perhaps check Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
And to others who have had a go at what I said - perhaps I was hasty in saying Wikipedia was "often" wrong, but it often struggles with nuances. Though it does give you a good general overview - and suggestions on where to go.
Don't get me wrong, I like Wikipedia. But you shouldn't cite it. A teacher who tells students (at whatever level) to not reference it is not a "bad teacher". They're a good teacher!
Re:rubish... (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Vandalism is overblown. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even when it's not allowed as a direct source, Wikipedia is always a great first stop to find more information about something.
Wikipedia's Downplayed Because (Score:5, Informative)
Inaccurate summation of Jimbo's words (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that he says this about those who fully ban students from reading Wikipedia. He doesn't say that those who "downplay" the project are bad educators, he says that those who fully ban students from even reading the website are bad. And you know what? He's right, as that's censorship. Those teachers who undertake bans are bad - they do a great disservice to their students. Sure, criticise Wikipedia, but don't ban it! in life students need to be able to read a source critically and at least assess what is being written. Banning it doesn't help build critical faculties. I should also point out that as a first source for information, in general Wikipedia can be really good.
OMG Vandalism! (Score:3, Insightful)
and noted that Wikipedia is still prone to vandalism
Yeah, that would suck if because of vandalism on Wikipedia kids wrote in papers that the Earth is the largest planet in the world [wikipedia.org], or that Mark Taddonio built the pyriamids (sic) [wikipedia.org].
Lazy Teachers = Lazy Students (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia and pulp culture... (Score:5, Informative)
Eg, it is a great resource if you want to learn about say, Cop-Tur [wikipedia.org] of the Go-Bots [wikipedia.org] (eg, if you are wondering about a random Robot Chicken [wikipedia.org] episode).
As an academic resource, it is nonciteable and nontrustable, due to the volatile nature and anonymous content.
(Admittedly, I have edited Wikipedia to add corrections. But I would never cite it, but instead use it as a smarter google for some topics)
Re:Wikipedia and pulp culture... (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
This is interesting... (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a new tack! This has basically been the same thing that the WMF has been saying for years now [wikimedia.org] ("Wikipedia, and all Wikimedia Foundation projects, are not in competition to EBI or other companies in the business of reference works. Our goals differ significantly from other reference publishers, and only overlap in that we are all striving to create accurate and useful knowledge tools.")
Is this a turning point in relations between the two projects? Are we going to see an end to the stupidity of Robert McHenry style "toilet" comparisons?
So many times when people fight technology (Score:5, Insightful)
I often think wikipedia is an excellent source in itself and for deeper knowledge, a reasonable starting point. Too often, the oft-heard admonishment "dig deeper!" does not always apply to students using wikipedia as their single source for a report, but also by the teachers criticizing wikipedia - usually they scan the surface of one edit of one article to look for those errors - while wholly ignoring the revealing and complete log of wikipedias discussions and history behind that single article. Behind that one surface, you get most of the interesting parts of a subject -- the common misunderstandings, misperceptions, and myths. The genuine points of contention and controversy and the gray areas where the truth is not wholly understood or available.
Instead, teachers indulge of what they criticize in their students - intellectual lethargy. Personally, I like what this professor is doing with wikipedia:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071030-prof-replaces-term-papers-with-wikipedia-contributions.html [arstechnica.com]
It's about the smartest embrace of wikipedia I have seen so far.
If I let you in you'll sell me encyclopedias (Score:3, Funny)
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Personal experience... (Score:4, Interesting)
I found it and added some references to information that others might see past the usenet troll and flamer bias that was indirectly referenced in the article.
I then started up another article to further clarify the subject matter for which the bias in the article on myself was centered around.
It went up for deletion and realizing the negativity bias of Wikipedia I called upon the usenet trolls and flamers against me to contribute to the discussion with the bias of removing both articles.
Both articles were deleted. I'd decided I'd rather not be mentioned, nor do I need such unfairly biased publicity by being listed in Wikipedia.
I recently discovered even more unfair bias towards someone who is no longer alive to defend themselves. The article contains half truths and outright lies.
This persons certainly has more public status than I, but I will not mention who they are but rather collect up references not found on the internet that expose the unfair bias of wikipedia and share it with real people in real time, so that they can see how cleverly corrupt wikipedia really is.
Wikipedia is built upon hearsay, upon what they call as "references". That's its rules and done so in order to remove RESPONSIBILITY. Put the blame on the reference,
and we all know how much crap is on the internet. This is where the references must be found and be kinda be accessible, as wikipedia does not verify all references regularly and many become broken.
They pick and chose which things they reference off the internet and tend to bias on the negative by the weakness of facts the nature of the machine the internet is and likewise wikipedia is.
So they find the opinions of others written somewhere on the internet and they have their references. Hearsay is not allowed in court, facts are.
Wikipedia is not based on facts, its based on hearsay and THEY DO NOT HAVE THE PROPER RESOURCES TO DO UNBIASED RESEARCH and they never will.
I expect Wikipedia to be very capable of writing the next bible.
Wikipedia needs a "in your face" disclaimer on every article and every page.
I've said it before and I'll say it again (Score:5, Insightful)
An encyclopedia of any source should be the start of your research, not the end of it. It gives you the keywords and background necessary to find the real information from a primary source.
Re:They are bad teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. That's a policy worth following even at the level of internet debates. If someone asks me for a summary of a topic, I'll point them at the article. However, if what's called for is a discussion of one aspect, or an authoritative reference, WP is not the right answer. However, more and more I find that WP is the fastest way to find a good reference on a subject -- find the relevant article, look at the references section, and the odds are good there will be an appropriate link.
Knowing how to use, and more importantly, how not to use, and encyclopedia should be basic knowledge. Teachers should be teaching it, and shouldn't matter in the slightest what encyclopedia you use for a paper, because the reader will never know.
Parent
Source criticism (Score:3, Insightful)
"A critical mind is a questioning mind" is a good lesson and should be taught at every level of education.
Virtually all sources are biased, in one way or another, and students need to be aware of this and treat the information in a manner befitting the source.
Wikipedia is just another source (not a primary one, of c
Re:They are bad teachers (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever actually read Wikipedia? Is there a different one I'm not aware of? That statement is wrong in two major ways:
1) Many things do NOT have links. You can find whole articles full of nothing but [citation needed] or ones without even that. Many things have links to sources, however many don't. As such while it can potentially be useful for background research, it isn't like a scholarly paper where you are guaranteed a list of works cited. Maybe you get that, maybe you don't.
2) Equally important many of the sources are not primary and often no good. I can link to a page saying anything I wanted. If I wanted I could just make some shit up, post it on my own website, and link to it. Bam, there's a source. However that doesn't mean the source is any good or that the information is true. A reference to a source is only good if the source is accurate, and really to be useful it needs to be to a primary source (meaning for statistics from research you don't link to an article discussing someone's research, you link to the research itself).
Wikipedia really isn't a good starting point for a scholarly paper unless you know nothing about the topic and are looking for general background. A search through a good library collection is going to get you far more useful starting points, and the works cited from those will continue it. With Wikipedia it's a crap shoot. Maybe you get a good article, edited by experts, with proper citations that will lead you to material you can use. Maybe you get a page written by an idiot, that links to misinformation.
Parent
Re:They are bad teachers (Score:5, Funny)
Revision as of Fri Dec 07, '07 11:52 PM:
Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher. You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either, you have to follow the exact same procedure, so there is no difference. I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia.
Revision as of Sat Dec 08, '07 01:23 AM:
Every fact on Wikipedia has a link back to the primary source {citation needed}. All you have to do is tell kids to look up the fact from the primary source and cite that {citation needed}, and obviously not to cite it if there is no link back or they can't find the material {citation needed}. Any teacher who is too intellectually lazy to take the time to understand this is by definition a bad teacher {citation needed}. You aren't allowed to cite Britannica in any real class either {citation needed}, you have to follow the exact same procedure {citation needed}, so there is no difference {citation needed}. I don't even see how someone could defend a teacher who would lie to kids about the purpose of an encyclopedia {citation needed}.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As has been recently brought up [slashdot.org], Wikipedia is not above corruption. It can be used to push an agenda, simply by leaving out sources which contradict your age
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Hitting a moving target (Score:5, Informative)
See that "Cite this article" link on the left column of Wikipedia?
Click on it. [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How well does that work when the articles get deleted [slashdot.org]? If Wikipedia was append-only, sure, but entire articles go missing all too often to ever reliably cite.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Example: I read about Krill [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia. I think the information is well sourced and written. I decide to cite it. I click on "Cite this page", which takes me to this link [wikipedia.org], which provides me with 7 different citation styles, including APA, MLA, Bluebook and Chicago style citations. If that isn't enough
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Institutions (Score:5, Insightful)
All the grad students look stuff up on it. There are lots [wikipedia.org] of [wikipedia.org] pretty scholarly [wikipedia.org] physics articles [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia, and it's a good place to go when you need to look something up or get guidance on a fundamental topic.
Of course, in physics, you're supposed to think about anything you read and confirm that it makes sense before you repeat it or believe it. This really should be true in all fields, but for some reason it's beaten into physicists' heads more than some others, I think.
Wikipedia is never the final authority on anything, but it's a good starting point. If you can't remember which one of Maxwell's equations has the minus sign, it's a quicker place than most (unless you have your copy of Jackson [wikipedia.org] at hand.)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why wikipedia is an excellent resource is the requirement for articles to have some type of references listed for accuracy and peer review
Re:Institutions (Score:5, Interesting)
And, yes, while the Feynman Lectures were intended for undergrads, a whole lot of people use them to study for PhD quals.
Quantum physics makes a great deal of sense in the only way that physical theories can: it explains our observations, to an uncanny level. *Why* it should be this way we don't really know. Quantum mechanics really isn't terribly counterintuitive; it's just *different* than the rules that govern large collections of matter. Those rules -- macroscopic mechanics, classical electromagnetism, and so on -- are just what happens when you look at the limit of quantum mechanics when a great many particles act together.
Parent
Re:Institutions (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Institutions (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless he's a Republican politician from the Christian Right, in which case all bets are off.
[See, I was just kidding there. It's a Saturday, after all, and I'm drinkin' early.]
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Even worse, the article on Gibb's Phenomenon [wikipedia.org] states:
The overshoot is a consequence of trying to approximate a discontinuous function with a partial (i.e. finite) sum of continuous functions. A finite sum of continuous functions is, by definition, continuous, and therefore cannot approximate the discontinuity (and the area "near" it) to within any arbitrarily chosen accuracy. An infinite sum of continuous functions can be discontinuous, and hence, does not exhibit the Gibbs phenomenon.
Which is just wrong. A square wave (the example on the page) exhibits Gibb's Phenomenon even if you take the infinite sum. A true square wave simply cannot be represented
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Until the average undergraduate is capable of making that distinction
If you're not capable of making that decision, you shouldn't be an undergraduate.
Shouldn't we demand some basic critical thinking skills from our undergrads at all?
Re:yup (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even Britannica is 100% correct, so I'm not sure there's any substance to the point you're trying to make.
Parent
Re:No conflict of interest here, of course. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, what?
Parent
The assholes have definitely taken over (Score:3, Insightful)
Even Jimbo Whales has experienced this. He started an article on Mzoli's Meats [wikipedia.org], a butcher shop and restaurant in South Africa. When it was almost speedily deleted, he told the deletors