Must be the question of the moment. There’s been a discussion over the last few days at H-Teach. The Guardian asked the question last week. And if:book has been discussing the issues too.
What You Said
- Cardinal Wolsey on London Lives
- Sharon Howard on London Lives
- Jeremy Bangs on History Carnival 86
- Chris Williams on Old Bailey Online keeps on digging
- Janice on Old Bailey Online keeps on digging
- gracchi on Whither Carnivals? Or, Carnivals wither?
- Claire on Carnivalesque 54
- Anna Battigelli on Connected Histories
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7 comments on “Can you trust Wikipedia?”
If Wikipedia can keep on providing material for the usual hacks then it can’t be all bad, can it?
The Great Unwashed V The Fourth Estate? I think I know who I trust more. :-p
All I can say is, I looked at some of the articles in my field, and many of them are really poor. More troubling is the fact that, even when they cite sources, the citations are often bad, in the sense that the author doesn’t understand the source. One of my faves is one of the articles on some Frankish thing — Franks or Merovingians, I think. Not only do I know a wee bit about Franks myself, but I know one of the authors cited in the article. I asked him if, as implied in the article, he thought Clovis was the first king of France. He was a bit dumbfounded at the question, I think.
One solution to this problem was advanced here by Phil Edwards:
http://existingactually.blogspot.com/2005/09/couldnt-be-simpler.html
There seems to be enormous variability in quality across different subjects. Some can be extremely good – but if you’re not an expert in a subject, how do you know whether you’re looking at a good ‘un or a pile of shite?
I never cite Wikipedia articles unless I have enough basic knowledge of the subject to spot obvious errors. Of course, that still leaves the possibility of missing the non-obvious ones.
Quote: “…how do you know whether you’re looking at a good’un or a pile of shite?”
Answer: you never do. Without wishing to get into some time-wasting empiricist argument here, ultimately, you have to research it for yourself. There’s an underlying fear from journos, and yes, maybe even some academics, when things like Wikipedia turn up. A bit like when police forces only started to discredit video evedence when camcorders became affordable to all. But it’s to late – we, the people, demand our right to research on Google just like all the hacks out there, and inflict our flawed findings on whoever cares to read it.
For non-inspirational tat just in time for Christmas click here:
http://www.despair.com/idiocy.html
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