Do you trust wikipedia?

Question

why or why not?

Answer 1

Depends...

When looking up some info about something trivia, like the movies some actor or actress has been in, that's fine.

But if you're doing a serious assignment, it would be much better to check your information with another web site or book just to make sure. And you will get much better marks I assure you!

Wikipedia can be edited by everyone and is therefore not the best site to use unless you want your marks to be low.

Hope this helps!

xx Chloe xx

Answer 2

There are different ways to use wikipedia. I trust most of the information, even if it says "this article does not cite sources" or "the information has not been checked" if it seems likely. Most of the time for research papers and stuff teachers will kill you if you use wikipedia, so I use it to get the facts, but then find other websites to cite and to double check the information. The thing is that wikipedia usually has everything you need on one or two pages, whereas you might go through 20 others without getting all of what you need.

Answer 3

The question that really needs to be asked is "Trust Wikipedia for what purpose"?

in general, the articles in Wikipedia are written by people who care about the subjects they write about. Especially on subjects that have a great amount of interest, there is quite a bit of peer review going on that ensures a certain level of accuracy. That being said, the level of accuracy in a particular article will vary depending upon the expertise of the editors of that particular article. These editors are all but anonymous.

If you are using Wikipedia as a general source for finding out initially what something is, or if you are looking for ideas on where else to look for information, then Wikipedia is a fine source of information.

If you are doing academic research (or a report for a school paper), then Wikipedia is not a particularly good source, just as any encyclopedia is not a particularly good source for this purpose. A look at the sources used may be a useful resource for suggesting possible sources for your own project, though. So in that since, any given article might not be trusted.

Do I trust Wikipedia? Yes, I trust many of the individual articles for what they are. But it is not trustworthy as a sole source of information.

Answer 4

Sure, the articles are free and they are continually edited by Wikipedia and analyzed for mistakes. You can post information for them to review, but only in rare instances can articles be edited by anyone from the internet. Other editors are always around to correct obvious errors, and Wikipedia's software, known as MediaWiki, is carefully designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes. Wikipedia has editorial policies, many of which are pretty obvious, no plagiarizing or infringing copyrights. They give you basic English grammar rules. Wikipedia is decent, but I would not recommend it for a major research project or assignment for school. Curriki.org is a new website similar to Wikipedia for educational learning of K-12 students.

Answer 5

I had the opportunity to speak at length with Jimmy Wales, one of the founders and the face of Wikipedia. Basically what he said is that statistically the error rate for inaccurate information is about 4 %, while at Encyclopedia Britannica is at 3%. However, he also mentioned that the most accurate information is in the areas where specialization is required for understanding of the material. Examples, math, philosophy. The majority of errors occur in citations of common, or pop culture knowledge. so yes I trust it. But it is an encyclopedia, and not a primary source. To really gain knowldege you gotta go the the primary source.

Answer 6

Wikipedia is an okay starting point for research, since it does provide an overview of most topics, but it shouldn't be used exclusively. While much of the information there is accurate, there are also a good many errors. Before relying on any information you find on wikipedia, verify it with another source.

Answer 7

I trust Wikipedia. I do becuase of the cited sources at the bottom. Also, because they have moderators. Now, I would not go citing wikipedia as a source, but going there and taking their sources, that what I do.

Answer 8

Most times I do trust Wikipedia. The articles are generally well written and researched. There are some however, that slant information to fit their personal agenda.

Answer 9

Yes and Not.Its depend upon sensitivity of article.In general, the articles in Wikipedia are written by people so it can reflect their own thoughts as well.
So use Wikipedia as references and double check if you want to quote some thing sensitive.

Answer 10

You should use wikipedia to get a brief understanding about a topic but you shouldn't take specific facts from there because users on wikipedia users can edit these articles which means they may not always be right.

Answer 11

Yeah i trust it, because if someone writes a false article about someone or something, Wikipedia will delete it. It has a lot of info.