This is an interesting development for online collective information-gathering:
Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article published Wednesday.
The finding, based on a side-by-side comparison of articles covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum, comes as Wikipedia faces criticism over the accuracy of some of its entries.
Two weeks ago prominent journalist John Seigenthaler, the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today, revealed that a Wikipedia entry that ran for four months had incorrectly named him as a longtime suspect in the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.
Such errors appear to be the exception rather than the rule, Nature said in Wednesday’s article, which the scientific journal said was the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia to Britannica. Based on 42 articles reviewed by experts, the average scientific entry in Wikipedia contained four errors or omissions, while Britannica had three.
As someone who uses Wikipedia a great deal, this is both reassuring and yet still provides me with ample reason to doublecheck Wikipedia entries before linking them. All in all, though, a win for the ffort, I would say.
Toni Trammal
This is good news, indeed, since many of the younger generation swear by it. My daughter even has wikipedia as the start page for her browser. Now I can breathe easier.
SomeCallMeTim
Love, love, love the Interweb and the wierd cryto-libertarian socialists that drive its culture. Life today is often truly teh awesome.
Kimmitt
Wiki’s really really good on the science articles, and is a great starting point for settled history. Current events stuff is generally decent, but it improves with the number of contributors.
Steve S
Wikipedia does work for science, and for historical stuff from long long ago.
Anything dealing with current events or modern history is often times inaccurate and riddled with biased nuttery.
Doug
Like any encyclopedia, it’s a great starting point but ought not be relied upon as gospel.
Marcus Wellby
I still prefer my circa 1978 edition of Worldbook. Plagiarized many a grade school essay out of those pages.
Krista
One thing I do like about it is the links to other topics. You often find yourself just randomly looking stuff up that catches your eye — a good way to learn new things. Reminds me of leafing through the old set of World Book encyclopedia on rainy days when I was a kid.
Mr.Ortiz
It was pointed out on another site (Slashdot, I believe) that Wikipedia entries are usually much longer than Britannica’s. If that’s because they’re more in-depth (as opposed to just wordier), then Wikipedia may actually have a LOWER error rate, even with more errors.
Marcus Wellby
Ha! And I thought I was the only nerd here :)
John Cole
You thought you were the ONLY nerd in a comments section of a relatively small weblog?
Heh.
Krista
We’re ALL nerds here. Every last one of us. Embrace it.
Paul Wartenberg
I work as a librarian. We are starting to get college students wondering about using Wiki as a resource. My answer, to them and to anyone else who uses Wiki, is: check other sources as well. It helps to have different resources on the same topic, just in case one is inaccurate it will allow you to spot the discrepancy and find out which is the correct resource to rely on.
By the by, I contribute to Wikipedia (if you’re interested to know, I’ve worked on the Gunfight at the OK Corral, Ike Clanton and Doc Holliday entries, the Tarpon Springs, Florida entry, the City of Heroes entry, and the film entries for Sahara (1943 film) and Bull Durham. Most of what I submitted stayed in, with a few edits, and the photos to any of those sites came from others…), so I am well aware of how the information can be edited within seconds, and of the quality of work on various entries. It’s a good starting point to find info, but I would not rely on it as an end-all be-all resource.
The thing upsetting me though: Britannica has errors?! Ack!
Anderson
What Paul said. This isn’t good news for Wiki, it’s terrible news for Britannica.
I mean, how’s this for a sales slogan:
“About as accurate as anonymous stuff posted free on the Internet!”
Paul Wartenberg
As long as imdb.com stays accurate, we’ll be fine.
I still can’t believe the imdb people took my X-Files/Men In Black fanfic story seriously… (it was based on a rumor David Duchovny was going to star in the MIB sequel, and so imdb picked up on it, and when it turned out to be false I got blamed for it, oh man…)
Vlad
I write for Wikipedia, under my real name. Mostly bios of old-time or obscure baseball players, but some other stuff as well.
Laurila
If one wants to be nice, one can surely assert that Wikipedia is more reliable than what’s written by average journalists.
A problem with Wikipedia is that it’s too inviting to cock-sure buth lesser knowing individuals, regardless of if they have “good” or “bad” intentions (whatever that now would be), and also too inviting to determined manipulators.
It’s also a lot easier to know how to interpret and understand a text when you can make yourself a picture of the writer’s general point of view. With Wikipedia articles you can do so only exceptionally.
Kiganshee
This links to some articles on wikipedia’s accuracy…. as compared to the encyclopledia britannica.
Wikipedia’s model is working, and it will only get more comprehensive as time goes on.
Rembrandt
Unfortunately, Wikipedia’s model is NOT working, as witnessed by the fact that Wikipedia itself is changing how it operates.
By the way, this entire thread misrepresents the actual findings of the Science study. What the study found was that Wikipedia was AT TIMES close to Encyclopedia Britannica in accuracy — and at times not. That’s not particularly good news for a reference work.
Certainly some of Wikipedia is accurate, but vast parts of it are complete crap — at best benignly inaccurate and incomplete, and at worst malicious libel.