December 15, 2005 3:35 PM PST
Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica
- Related Stories
-
In search of the Wikipedia prankster
December 15, 2005 -
Is Wikipedia safe from libel liability?
December 7, 2005 -
Growing pains for Wikipedia
December 5, 2005
Wikipedia is about as good a source of accurate information as Britannica, the venerable standard-bearer of facts about the world around us, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature.
Over the last couple of weeks, Wikipedia, the free, open-access encyclopedia, has taken a great deal of flak in the press for problems related to the credibility of its authors and its general accountability.
In particular, Wikipedia has taken hits for its inclusion, for four months, of an anonymously written article linking former journalist John Seigenthaler to the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and John F. Kennedy. At the same time, the blogosphere was buzzing for several days about podcasting pioneer Adam Curry's being accused of anonymously deleting references to others' seminal work on the technology.
Related story
Growing pains for Wikipedia
Growing pains for Wikipedia
After two scandals in one week, Wikipedia's founder decides to make a change to the anyone-can-contribute encyclopedia.
In response to situations like these and others in its history, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has always maintained that the service and its community are built around a self-policing and self-cleaning nature that is supposed to ensure its articles are accurate.
Still, many critics have tried to downplay its role as a source of valid information and have often pointed to the Encyclopedia Britannica as an example of an accurate reference.
For its study, Nature chose articles from both sites in a wide range of topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles--one from each site on a given topic--side by side, but were not told which article came from which site. Nature got back 42 usable reviews from its field of experts.
In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts, in the articles. Of those, four came from each site. They did, however, discover a series of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements. All told, Wikipedia had 162 such problems, while Britannica had 123.
That averages out to 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86 for Wikipedia.
"An expert-led investigation carried out by Nature--the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science," the journal wrote, "suggests that such high-profile examples (like the Seigenthaler and Curry situations) are the exception rather than the rule."
And to Wales, while Britannica came out looking a little bit more accurate than Wikipedia, the Nature study was validation of his service's fundamental structure.
"I was very pleased, just to see that (the study) was reasonably favorable," Wales told CNET News.com. "I think it provides, for us, a great counterpoint to the press coverage we've gotten recently, because it puts the focus on the broader quality and not just one article."
He also acknowledged that the error rate for each encyclopedia was not insignificant, and added that he thinks such numbers demonstrate that broad review of encyclopedia articles is needed.
He also said that the results belie the notion that Britannica is infallible.
"I have very great respect for Britannica," Wales said. But "I think there is a general view among a lot of people that it has no errors, like, 'I read it in Britannica, it must be true.' It's good that people see that there are a lot of errors everywhere."
To Britannica officials, however, the Nature results showed that Wikipedia still has a way to go.
"The (Nature) article is saying that Wikipedia has a third more errors" than Britannica, said Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopedia Britannica.
But Cauz and editor in chief Dale Hoiberg also said they were concerned that Nature had not specified the problems that it had found in Britannica.
"We've asked them a number of questions about the process they used," Hoiberg said. "They said in (their article) that the inaccuracies included errors, omissions and misleading statements. But there's no indication of how many of each. So we're very eager to look at that and explore it because we take it very seriously."
56 comments
Join the conversation! Add your comment
serious reports.
serious reports.
As for Britannica, it's a pathetic shadow of its old treeware self. I never use it.
... Wikipedia isn't acceptable as a stable reference source for
serious reports."
Earl - I have used Wikipedia in many reports through out my university life (which is ranked 11th in UK currently and top 30 in Europe - before u say ask about its credibility. Wikipedia provides 90% of the time very accurate and relevant information with correct book and article references.. use it wisely as they say, and no university ever can say you have used bad source. Yes officially wikipedia was not used.. in reality every student does it and professors know.
It got me through undergrad and grad school no problem. Now it's helping me with my second grad degree.
You just have to know HOW to use it.
-Jonathan
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://philoneist.com" target="_newWindow">http://philoneist.com</a>
Predicting your hardheadedness, you will find another reason to make a stink. But know this: the errors in the Britannica will have to wait until the next printing to be corrected. The Wiki's have probably already been changed.
problem with that, and never did have. Wikipedia's problem is that
what it says today may be correct, but not what it says tomorrow,
and vice versa. It is exactly that instability that makes Wikipedia
inadequate to serve as a serious reference source.
No humble pie required here. You just need to have better criteria
for evaluating dependable accuracy.
Wiki is less reliable, but then again, how often do we need to know all the nitty gritty details of a subject? When trying to find out the distance to the Moon, f wiki causes me to be off by 100,000 miles, no big deal, to me.
But here is the big misunderstanding. Wiki is fast and growing. It has a MUCH broader range of topics AND you can directly link to external websites to find out more. If something happens in the news tonight, you can bet that Wiki will have something up tomorrow. It may not be 100% accurate, but I'll sacrifice a little accuracy for information now.
Additionally, you are not going to find an article on "1337 speak" in Britannica. Nor will you get an article "Stargate: SG-1" in Britannica. As far as American culture goes, Wiki is king. Also, there are alot of fringe interests out there that don't get a whole lot of attention by major publishers, but they have entries in Wiki.
All in all, I think that Wiki has done more to raise the "general" knowledge of people than Britannica, simply because it gives your the information you are looking for quick and gives you enough general information so that you can go from there and research the subject further.
Anything any joe says at any time can be a reference in a college level paper. The authority of the reference is the question. Wikipedia tracks the history of an article, so verfiying the overall validity of an article is as easy as browsing the history to view edits. Generally, the more people that have edited an article, the more accurate it will be. You can also easily spot POV or vandalism by content changed. It's too bad EB doesn't offer a history of changes broken down by source!
What Wikipedia really needs is a notification system for changes. That way anyone referencing or modifying an article could register for notifications and be immediately notified of any changes.
One more thing, when researching, always look at all sides of any issue. Wikipedia should be used as one of many references, and is great as a starting point. And once your research is completed and if you find the Wiki article lacking, then change it!
I second this, further discussion is expedited when an individual knows when his entries have been edited.
Uh... It already has one. Click the "watch" or "add to watchlist" button at the top of any article you want to keep track of the changes to.
Dr. David Hill Chief Executive
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland Registration no.CH-035.7.035.277-9 - 11th July 2005, in the Canton of Bern
www.thewif.org.uk
I would say that anyone with a brain in their head takes information from any source whatsoever with a grain of salt.
there are lots of issues here, first is the reliability, the latest edition and revision..
I would argue that the exact future of Wikipedia you speak of already exists within the present media. How many myths and mistruths are perpetuated currently that the general public don't know aren't correct? Hell, even school textbooks have scores of fundamental errors. Certainly this article doesn't suggest Wikipedia is infallible, but neither is Britannica, which is a greatly respected resource. I do however agree that to become complacent and ignore the faults within Wikipedia's system would be foolish. It's the second guessing of these resources that helps keep their articles accurate. In Britannica's case the lack of this that has probably created it's high factual error rate for what should be, and is often considered, an almost errorless publication.
C-
</sarcasm>
42. So we have 42 out of 100,000. What kind of sample is that? This study is not valid enough for the points it tries to make (according to this article).
http://devicegadget.com/resources/encylopedia-britannica-vs-wikipedia/4113/
Use of "fake quotes" with its administrators' support; just another example of why Wikipedia isn't reliable http://******/OSYcD0 and http://migre.me/ayHuf
Use of "fake quotes" with its administrators' support; just another example of why Wikipedia isn't reliable http://******/OSYcD0 and http://migre.me/ayHuf