Perspective: Teen's warning on the gospel of Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the Internet's latest additions to the information revolution. More importantly, it's the reason I was able to finish my massive second-semester AP English research final project in less than 45 minutes.

As the deadline loomed, I knew there was no way I would be able to sort through thousands of Google search results or go to the library to research while simultaneously performing other vital homework completion functions like talking online, reading celebrity gossip and downloading music. So I did what any desperate, procrastinating student would do--I logged on to Wikipedia, pulled up the entries on Renaissance literature and filled in the gaps in my paper until I had a presentable product.

The name Wikipedia comes from the Latin root "pedia," meaning "book of arcane facts" and the ancient German root "wiki," meaning "potentially altered by any idiot with Internet access." Actually, Wikipedia combines the words "encyclopedia" and "wiki," a type of software that facilitates online editing.

While visitors are held to a strict honor code...there are clearly Wiki users with very little honor.

Wikipedia recently made headlines when it banned Stephen Colbert from editing or adding articles on its pages after the comedian made humorous, false additions to the site and encouraged fans to do the same.

But Colbert's antics may have done the world--and by the world, I mostly mean me and my peers--a favor. Until recently, many kids in my high school, myself included, used Wikipedia without questioning the integrity of its content. Before Colbert highlighted the unreliability of the site's information, I doubt many people even realized it isn't an authoritative, credible source.

Yes, teachers and parents constantly remind students to think twice before relying on certain online sources, but it's easy for a student in a rush to forget that Wikipedia belongs in the category of unverified information rather than credible information--especially because its format is one of a traditional encyclopedia.

Which isn't to say Wikipedia's a bad thing.

One of the site's major selling points is its ability to reach both niche and general audiences in one place. Plus, the opportunity to contribute offers people--especially teens whose voices aren't always heard by more traditional or mainstream publications--a way to propagate their views and gain access to information written by their peers.

But the site comes with pitfalls.

Edits, for example, have no formal filters. And while visitors are held to a strict honor code, there are clearly Wiki users with very little honor, as has been demonstrated on Comedy Central. It's easy to upload blatantly false information, a lesson I learned the hard way when I turned in an English project that defined "beatniks" as the '50s answer to gangsta rap. Well, not really, but this is an example of what can happen when people without brains use information written by people without consciences.

Of course, for students, Wikipedia is the miracle cure for procrastination (and there's science to back that up; a recent poll showed that nine out of 10 doctors suggested Wikipedia as a cure to putting homework off. The other 10 percent were too busy uploading spurious entries to participate in the poll).

Unlike search engines, Wikipedia searches do not bombard you with thousands of sites that have little or no relation to the subject you are researching. Unlike traditional textbooks, Wikipedia articles do not require a trip to the library, but are available from the comfort of your home or dorm. Wikipedia is completely open about the fact that its information is not quality-controlled, but even if information is easy to access and modify, it isn't worth anything if there is no way of separating fact from fiction.

So please take my advice, students: Wikipedia is a great place to find out about local bands or start doing research. However, before including Wikipedia information in a term paper or using Wikipedia entries to study for exams, make sure you support your findings with more legitimate sources. Until next time, I will be editing Wikipedia pages.

Biography
Soumya Srinagesh is a CNET intern who will be attending Wellesley College this fall. In her spare time, she tries to pull herself away from her computer to save the world.

More Perspectives

[Icemann655]

It's more reliable than you think

Granted that any regular joe can add information to wikipedia, however people are very quick to also mark information as invalid too. An example, a friend of mine came up with a funny but still made up scale of what determines the best value of alcohol to college students. It looked credible enough and he was under the radar enough where it could stay a very long time. The information was marked potentially incredible in a matter of days. Pretty impressive. Even though anyone can post to it, it also gives anyone the ability to review it as well. It's not completely like the internet where anything goes. It's more like open source for information. Granted books are the most reliable but I feel wiki's are not as unreliable as you make it out to be.

[Mike Maloney]

Agree

I had a friend visit the Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks page, and under the list of captains, he jokingly added Charlie Conway (Captain from the Mighty Ducks' movies) at the top of the list. Very minor detail on a page that probably isn't looked at all that often, and yet days later, the information was removed. I've been quite impressed with their ability to keep inaccurate information out.

[nalf38]

maybe, but still

A lot of Wiki's original board members have left the organization because their own Wiki pages are filled with innaccuracies and as soon as they remove them, someone puts it back again. So much for being an expert on yourself.

It's definitely reliable in many aspects......except when it's not, and then how are you to know? At least with using an encyclopedia as a starting point, you can be sure that the material has been peer-reviewed and the information came from people who are experts in their field. Yes, I know the article about how Wikipedia is just as accurate as an encyclopedia, but for academic purposes there has to be accountability, and with Wiki there's simply no way to tell where the info. is coming from, and Hooray for Stephen Colbert for making this painfully obvious.

I've often seen Wikipedia compared to Open Source, and I strongly disagree with the comparison. Ever single contributor to the Linux kernel is documented, and nearly every open source program credits their authors. With Wikipedia, it's too easy for anonymous people with an ax to grind on one of their pet issues to add biased, skewed, or blatantly wrong information to a wiki page. And a lot of the time the incorrect information is removed, but 'a lot of the time' isn't acceptable. It has to be 'all of the time' to be considered credible enough for any kind of academic purpose.

That said, sometimes I visit a Wikipedia page to see what, if any, sources are cited, and then go directly to those hardcover sources.

If you want to know why the sky is blue so you can explain it to your three-year-old, use Wikipedia. If you want to write a scholarly paper of any kind, stay far, far away from Wiki.

[dgiakoumakis]

pedia

Pedia is not a Latin word but a Greek one. You should use wikipedia more often.

[jonavon]

Did the World a Favor

Colbert's antics highlighted it's unreliabilty in the scope of public view. However, if you look at the situation with perspective, you can also note that the event tested Wikipedia's safeguards. Most articles that are vandalized on Wikipedia are also corrected within about thirty minutes[needs citation]. Hopefully the event should have given people the wisdom to use multiple resources for research. No one source, including books, can be completely reliable on any one subject.

[racekarl]

Wikipedia has failed this test before

Colbert broadcast his intentions as he was editing, and before he exhorted his fans to do the same, making it relatively easily for the self-styled wikipolice to correct any changes.

There have been several previous examples however, of malicious changes that went undetected for months.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/26/cox.wikipedia/index.html

[mjjack]

Wikipedia statement on academic use

This says it all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use

[AlcoJaguar]

It's not like they're trying to trick you...

As mjjack showed with that link, it's not like Wikipedia has ever tried to pass itself off as a 100% completely reliable source of information. Not to say Wikipedia is a bad idea, on the contrary it is an amazingly good one, but they make it very clear that the system has a few shortcomings of which you need to be aware. What amazes me is how unquestioning many people are of a pretty site with fancy topics until some spinoff on TV starts making fun of it.

[M C]

This just in: intern best writer on staff

...she's even mastered the "flameworthy/obvious" topic-choice skills that CNet requires.

My advice: Soumya! Run! Before you get sucked in to rewriting security company press releases!

[HerrM]

Wikipedia is nearly as accurate as Brittanica

According to an investigation by Nature, Wikipedia has only slightly more inaccuracies than Encylopedia Brittanica:

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html

As founder Jimmy Wales points out in the article you linked to, using any encyclopedia as your sole source of research is a bad idea.

[Diamond1965]

Only if you define "nearly" to be "the opposite of"

Nature's study was cooked up by journalists at Nature magazine. Britannica posted its reply http://corporate.britannica.com/britannica_nature_response.pdf showing that Britannica's "mistakes" were not mistakes at all, that spelling mistakes were made equivalent to factual errors, that some of the articles compared were not from the encyclopedia and that at least one of the articles was cut and pasted from two different articles.

In short, a snow-job.

You'd think that Nature would be apologetic about attempting to trash Britannica's reputation for scholarship like that, and you'd be wrong.

Even given those massive caveats, Wikipedia was a third less accurate than Britannica. Oh, and Jimmy Wales' opinion about the reliability of encyclopedias only applies to his own. The rest actually stand behind their scholarship, while Wales stands behind the bar and ducks all responsibility.

[br3akerboy]

Great article. Thanks for revealing this.

I never knew wikipedia was possibly untrue. that explains all the useless crap on it with punctuation and spelling errors and useless garble like 'afrgrhfasssdsadsdasdf"

[sarveshm]

Great article !! Maybe Wellesly can wait.

This discussion applies to a whole class of 'user generated' content sites.

[drrave]

re: wikipedia

great article. whats next? Will you take on google and its artful
arrangement of search items displayed like items on a supermarket
shelf?
Better ban the congress from reading wikipedia.....

[mastermaq]

You're missing the point

First of all, waiting until the last minute is your own fault. And I think it's sad that it took a comedian on television to make you realize that Wikipedia might not be 100% accurate.

I guess this really isn't so much about whether students should use Wikipedia or not - to me, it's clear they should (it's just as accurate as Britannica, contains more articles, etc). The point that needs to be made is that students always need to find multiple sources for information they want to use, and they've always got to add something extra. Even in a research paper, a little commentary and anaylsis will help your paper rise to the top of the pile when the time comes for it to be graded.

Don't use only Wikipedia, but don't be afraid to use it in addition to your other resources either.

[fredmenace]

Exactly

The point of the article is good, but misdirected. Wikipedia is unreliable, but so is EVERY OTHER SOURCE of information, printed or otherwise. The most respectable book in the world isn't necessarily more accurate or complete, and shouldn't be trusted any more than Wikipedia or a Google search (which could itself be considered an "encyclopedic" source of information).

Multiple sources is the best starting point for trying to get reliable information, but even that isn't foolproof: there are just too many wrong ideas out there, even those put forward by "experts" who have extensively studied the subject matter (eg, see: ever-changing nutritoinal recommendations, such as "avoid eggs because they are high in cholesterol" or the enduring physiological mantra that "the adult brain does not build new neurons", just for starters).

In addition, it is far too easy for multiple different sources to derive their information from the same bad original source. (Such an "authoritative" source that others might copy, quote, or reference might include the Encyclopedia Britannica. If the EB is wrong or incomplete, and I'm sure it is very frequently, lots of other "authoritative" printed sources may follow it into being wrong or incomplete, too.)

The best safeguard is probaby to seek different sources that CLEARLY did not get their information from the same place - if they are claiming slightly different things or covering entirely different details or angles on a subject, what you learn by the combination is probably more valuable than either one alone.

As for EB vs Wikipedia: I'd generally trust Wikipedia more, at least knowing its limitations (and double checking with other sources). EB and other carefully-edited printed material are very good at covering up their mistakes, ignorance, bias, and other limitations behind well-crafted writing (whereas it's often obvious when a Wikepedia entry - or random web page - is superficial, poorly-crafted, or displays an obvious slant or agenda).

The other factor is that EB is pretty static (and will probably never be much better or more complete than it is now, in either scope, detail or accuracy), whereas the amount of information in Wikipedia is growing dramatically over time, and simultaneously becoming more accurate (on average).

[nalf38]

yes, but

I think a lot university professors would flunk any paper if a Wikipedia URL was used as a footnote or in a bibliography. I agree with that you that it might be a good starting point when searching for source material, but Wiki's lack of accountability renders it unusable for academic purposes, even if it is accurate.

Still, I might use it for personal purposes, like if I wanted, just for fun, to see pictures of Saturn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn) and maybe get a few factoids just for the heck of it. But for actual research? The whole Wikipedia set up just doesn't smell right to me. Think of Wikipedia as something like Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, but not Encyclopedia Brittanina.

[funkytown]

This is news?

Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source out there? Really?

[sumwatt]

... and you wrote a comment?...

It's a column, not news. And it's from the Intern who is writing a column for a large Internet portal; she's obviously fresh out of high school and cutting her teeth doing a column. So before you jump on your high and mighty "This is news?" horse, maybe it would serve you better to actually read what she wrote and consider the target audience she wrote it for. I think it hit all the points very accurately for the intended audience.

[Y0URWUR57NM4R3]

WoW!

As a high school student and frequent visitor of wikipedia, I
found this article extremely illuminating and incredibly
insightful. I look forward to hearing more from this enchanting
author.

[acharya05]

wikipedia

I always knew that there was something fishy about wikipedia with anyone and everyone giving his or her comments/expert opinion on any thing under the sun.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion in your well resarched and superbly written article.

Acharya

[acharya05]

wikipedia

I always knew that there was something fishy about wikipedia with anyone and everyone giving his or her comments/expert opinion on any thing under the sun.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion in your well resarched and superbly written article.

Acharya

[ayteebee]

Wikipedia and vandalism

Ahhh, the joys of anonymity. "Welcome to the internet... Now anybody can be a vandal, from the comfort of your own chair!" Sure, you can go into your local library, open the Encyclopedia Britannica or whatever, and scribble out the odd letter to make rude words. Or, you can go to Wikipedia.org, click the "random article" button, edit it to your heart's delight and click "save changes". It comes to the same thing in the end - vandalism - the difference is that for one your likely to get told off, the other you're pretty much safe.

Dammit, I hate n00bs who don't have any sense of responsibility...

So, you had found the "edit article" button, but hadn't realised that everyone else with access to the internet could also find it?

So you read the wikipedia introduction article [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction ] and didn't consider if this raised issues of accuracy?

So you left your assignment until the last minute?

Admittedly these are all easy mistakes to make, but then to go and blame it all on Wikipeda? Wikipedia does not claim to be the Encyclopedia Britannica. It does not claim to be flawless. It does not claim to be complete. So why do we continue to see this "Wikipedia sucks" stuff popping up all over the web?

Wikipedia is a resarch tool. It is DIFFERENT to the Encyclopedia Britannica and it is DIFFERENT to peer-reviewed papers. For an assignment there are rules, and generally these involve quoting from "trustworthy sources". However that is not to say Wikipedia does not have its uses. For example, the other day I found a freezer that I needed to take apart (to make a cooling system for my computer) (what do you mean "are you sure I need that??). I found a label on the inside which said "refrigerant: R134a". I decided it would be useful to see whether this was dangerous, should I get a leak. So I went to wikipedia, searched for "r134a" and it taught me all about 1,1,1,2, tetrachloroethane, otherwise known as r134a, a CFC-free, ozone friendly chemical used as a refrigerant and a propellant in spray cans. This was exactly the answer I needed. Note, however, if I were to go off and write a paper about chemical R134a, I would have to do some more research, finding referances from appropriate sources. This is because Wikipedia is a starting point for learning about a subject and gathering information; it is not the last word on a subject.

I shall repeat that: "Wikipedia is a starting point, not the last word".

Try and use it incorrectly and you will run into problems.

[degrassicutie1]

Thanks

Wow, I just want to say thanks for posting this article. Last year, when I was in 10th grade, I used wikipedia constantly for chemistry class. And sometimes for English and History. As a matter of fact, it helped me with all my major subjects. I wouldn't actually take stuff from wikipedia and put it into my papers, but I would go to wikipedia and read their information, and it helped me out a lot. But now I see that I should be careful and make sure the information is accurate; lucky all the stuff I used there so far was accurate. Thanks for letting us know.

[gerhard_schroeder]

Excellent column. The intern schools the establishment

I don't know how many times I would come to C|Net to find blatantly liberal anti-military dripping from the pages. People like that guy Terdman, and Charles Cooper. Yuck, its enough to make you sick.

However, the fresh new face of C|Net is both young and right. I really enjoy the new practical focus on *ahem* TECHNOLOGY... gee what a concept.

[libkitty]

reliable info also available from home

I understand the attraction of Wikipedia, and use it sometimes myself. Most libraries in the US provide wonderful, authoritative, online resources. With a library card and PIN (or even without them in many cases), you can access electronic books, articles, resource guides, even encyclopedias, all for free (or rather, for no charge to you - libraries pay a lot to make them available). With these resources, why rely on wikipedia? Next time, with library resources, you'll know exactly who beatniks were!