Posted by Owen Roberts on August 06, 2008 at 13:08:10 user OwenRoberts.
In Reply to: Re: Wiki - it works posted by Adam Quinan on August 06, 2008 at 23:09:56:
I am sorry that any criticism of Wikipedia seems to press the wrong buttons with you, Adam.
Certainly there is much good (including the featured articles) and also interesting information on Wikipedia (including that wot i writted meself!). However there is much misinformation as well.
As well as the 10 year old vandalism (do I remember an incident with Roger and a certain Latin - English dictionary in ML?), there is also the cleverly targeted rewriting by extreme religious, ethnic and political groups which may trap the unwary. Anything to do with history, religion or evolution is a suspect area plus probably many others of which I am unaware.
People do use Wikipedia for research; they write their hypotheses and see what corrections they get. Lazy people’s research but it might be effective.
I was discussing research with an Oxbridge Research Fellow last year; his view of Wikipedia was “to misquote Walter Kerr slightly – it has delusions of adequacy”. To be fair, I did later look Walter Kerr up on Wikipedia.
I suspect we will probably never agree on this topic and that you are intelligent enough not to be misled by Wikipedia. It can be a useful resource if used carefully. It can only be recommended to others with a health warning. However I suspect, as with the health warnings on tobacco packets, if you want to use the product you will ignore the warning.
This has really drifted too far from AR, so I think I have said enough.