Wikipedia encyclopedia articles are written by anyone who joins up -- even if they have ZERO expertise or knowledge in the topics. There is no expert or subject matter review that anything on Wikipedia is accurate. So WHY does anyone believe Wikipedia and why does YAHOO and GOOGLE promote their site with a high ranking in searches?
2007-11-14 02:52:10 · 11 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Not all the information shown on Wikipedia is BS. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will generally see references (and links) to legitimate books, papers, etc. on the topic at hand.
However, when reviewing anything on Wikipedia, I am very careful about fact checking people's personal opinions.
Nor will I use anything on a specific page from Wikipedia as a reference, but I may use a referenced source at the bottom of the page, if it is legitimate.
2007-11-14 02:58:35 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Wikipedia has thousands or even millions of experts. They are just not paid. This is a new approach. Rather than choosing one expert, wikis rely on the expertise of the public. Ideally, it is self-correcting. If an error is made, a more knowledgeable (or more honest) expert can correct it. The idea is that thousands of experts are likely to be closer to the truth than one. And it works pretty well. Both Yahoo and Google rank sites according to their popularity. So Wikipedia comes up at the top of many searches because people us it a lot, not because the search engines support it.
2007-11-14 02:59:18 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Mainly because of peer reviewing.
Anyone can write but anyone else can edit as well as checking for outright lies etc. They also have an active core community of people who check the accuracy of things.
I could understand your point if the only people involved were say a bunch of friends from california, but wikipedia literally has millions of users which makes it one of the most reviewed resources anywhere. A normal encyclopedia might have one writer for an article and may never be revised even if that person was not entirely accurate; whereas wikipedia is constantly subject to revision by millions of people.
2007-11-14 03:00:25 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
You have a good point. I have seen bogus stuff in Wikipedia, but I also have seen some accurate stuff. I have corrected some mistakes in Wikipedia, the ones I found were harmless, just accidental oversights. Did you see the Colbert Report when he had people make entries on Wikipedia that the number of (I think it was elephants anyway) elephants had increased since hunting them started? Or some such thing. It was absurd but it made a point. A fact is a fact regardless of who, or how many people believe it, or don't. If Wikipedia had existed in the Dark Ages it would have assured you that the Earth was the center of the universe and that it was flat. Facts are facts.
2007-11-14 02:59:50 · answer #4 · answered by jxt299 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes. Millions of Christians do. It is the official position of the Roman Catholic Church for a start. But it's not a "get out of jail free" card that solves all problems. Some Christian evolutionary positions have to reserve a special place (with no evolutionary evidence) for the creation of humanity. That's a theological imposition on the science. More troubling, if evolution was and is God-guided is the difference between God having a hand in evolution and it being a purely natural phenomenon... If you are standing at the bottom of a cliff and a rock falls on you and kills you, that's an accident. But if you are standing at the bottom of a cliff and someone pushes a rock aiming to hit you and it kills you, that's murder... If God controlled, allowed, evolution, everything is much more in the second category. How can there be "accidents" with a God? But almost all species we know about are extinct... Doesn't feel like good *design*, but fits with a nature that doesn't care about individual species. There have been several mass extinctions, at least one exactly caused by a giant dropping rock. Ichneumon wasps plant their eggs in the bodies of paralysed but living caterpillars, so the grubs can eat their way out through a supply of fresh food when they hatch. Charles Darwin had trouble equating that to the idea of a loving God who could come up with no better way of arranging things. If there is a good hand behind everything, why would my wisdom teeth have caused me agony? If evolution is a natural phenomenon I can see that a bigger brain might have given advantages but left (lesser) negative side- effects: a less-than-perfect jaw, and painful childbirth for example. But should the "whoops factor" be there if God is? All the contingencies and happenstances of nature start to look a look more like deliberate cruelty and waste if there was an intelligent omnipotent being behind evolution, creating or permitting such.
2016-05-23 03:18:23 · answer #5 · answered by alida 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
People should not rely on Wikipedia, especially for political information. It does, however, often have references to reliable articles (the kind that cannot be edited by anyone at any time). I think the search engines give priority to sites that are accessed the most often, and that is why Wikipedia often winds up at the top.
2007-11-14 02:57:16 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 0⤋
I don't believe everything in Wikipedia-you need to check the links and do more research. Wikipedia is a good place to start, not end research.
They do have a great free service and organize information better than anyone.
2007-11-14 02:59:06 · answer #7 · answered by Middleclassandnotquiet 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well the articles aren't exactly just put out there. There is a review process, both by a board and the users. Utterly false and/or nonfactual information doesn't last long... however there is a somewhat liberal (progressive, if you wish) political bias that does have some influence on even science type of articles.... Global Warming, for example.
2007-11-14 02:58:36 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
They may have 0.. or they may be experts.. and the idea is that with enough input you statistically should move towards a consensus truth... the more people who participate.. the more truth the site has. At least that's the theory of self regulation. At the very least it is an interesting spot to look up others opinions.
2007-11-14 02:57:38 · answer #9 · answered by pip 7 · 5⤊ 0⤋
Much of wiki is correct, you just have to check sources.
Sources are supplied.
As someone already stated, search placement is based on pay basis, and traffic.
2007-11-14 03:01:01 · answer #10 · answered by Think 1st 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋