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More on Wikipedia accuracy

Wikipedia is clearly not perfectly accurate; in some areas it is noticeably incomplete, inaccurate, or biased. I wouldn't want someone to rely solely on Wikipedia in making an important decision. I wouldn't want someone to rely on any single source on the net to make a truly important decision.

On the other hand, as background material, as an overview or summary of the subject, as entertainment, to merely remind you of the meaning of a word or location of a country, I think it's harmless.

In the future I think it is likely to continue to improve. I think there is strong self-regulation to make sure that good content is not lost or corrupted once it's added, and so the fraction of good bits will increase. Any one page at any one moment may be incorrect, but the probability will decrease over time. Critical reading, and applying Wikipedia-specific skills such as scrutinizing the history and cross-referencing can reduce the danger of false information.

As an example of this filtering in action, the Australian Gannet page was originally created as an attack on Wikipedia, but now it has useful content.

See also Wikipedia:Replies to common objections:

Wikipedia is both a product and a process. Even if the product is not yet perfect, the process ensures that at the end of every day, the encyclopedia is higher quality than it was at the beginning of the day. That doesn't ensure we will eventually attain perfection (if such a thing is even possible), but it's something to believe in.[...]

It should be noted that the three other leading online encyclopedias have disclaimers and provide no warranty as to their accuracy - Britannica, Encarta and Bartleby. Sometimes the staff of those encyclopedias forget this fact.

posted Sun 24 Oct 2004 in /software/wikipedia | link

Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Martin Pool.