It is time to stop sourcing Wikipedia - List of Liberal bias and misinformation

Conservapedia ^

[ari-freedom]

liberal atheists believe in evolution...who knew?

[LowOiL]

BTTT your eye friendly edited version of the article.

[WorkerbeeCitizen]

The information contained in a wiki, any wiki, is only as reliable and acurate as its contributors.

[According2RecentPollsAirIsGood]

Yes, because anyone can edit it, Wikipedia is susceptible to being used as a political and ideological tool with certain articles. And, yes, it's not generally acceptible as reference material in real reports (though I can and have referenced lots of great pictures from it). However, it's not intended to be an academic source. It's supposed to serve as a compendium and a hub of knowledge, and it could not be as successful as it is if it were not fully open to everyone.

Most people I know are well aware that Wikipedia is not a reliable place to get unbiased information on political and historical concepts. However, the same could probably be said about a lot of textbooks that kids use in school. So there actually is a built-in skepticism when using it from what I've seen. Even in some of the worst disputed articles, there are plenty of normal facts, and the great thing about Wikipedia is that those facts are easily accessible on the internet as they are in one location. You can just skip to the parts that you need and ignore and sections that might have opinions in them.

Personally, I just avoid any political or historical articles on Wiki unless I'm just looking for simple indisputable facts as I decribed above. I use it to get me acquainted with various general knowledge and technical topics. Those articles are generally clean, unbiased, and incredibly useful. Most of them demonstrate the knowledge of someone well-versed in that specific topic and usually include useful links and outside sources. Plus, Wiki has multiple checks set up to assist people in improving things. Warnings about unsourced or poorly written articles help to determine the amount of skepticism you should show when reading something. A copy is saved of every revision made to an article in its history so you can easily go back and compare it to previous versions. It gives everyone the chance to be both contributor and quality control.

Finally, Wikipedia is invaluable because it has information about just about everything. Everything. In one place. From the most bizarre internet meme to the workings of a nuclear weapon to the complete discography of your favorite Japanese glam-rock band to explanations of all the different internet protocols out there, it has info on everything. Brittanica couldn't hope to compile a fraction of the info what Wiki has nor would it probably be as accurate if it could. Yes, take Wikipedia in pretty obvious situations with a grain of salt, but don't restrict yourself from all the other other solid and easily accessible information in it. There's a hell of a lot of it.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I have a Mac, and links to Wikipedia are built into the OS. That's not likely to gull me into taking Wiki for gospel, but the serious point is that de facto Wiki is apparently a new member of the MSM. Things stated as fact that just ain't so, mixed into a credible-appearing framework.

I considered logging onto Conservapedia to help build it, but it just seemed a bit much and I never actually did anything with it. But certainly the singular important thing which should be done is to make a port to Wiki which would be designed as a filter and which would simply pass you on to Wiki on the mundane stuff, but would provide a "conservative" (we are, as F A Hayek pointed out, not actually conservative but true liberals) take on issues which Wiki treats as the MSM would. I would start with a discussion of the Associated Press, and the First Amendment.

But whereas I can discuss those topics at length on FR, that is a different thing from shoehorning my opinions into the encyclopedia format exemplified by Wikipedia. And I am not sure that that is an accident; it is entirely possible that a case can be made that that format, in and of itself, constrains the expression of opinion away from conservatism. Just as the nature of journalism inherently drives people who are conservative away from being reporters, and attracts liberals.

[dawn53]

None of my son’s college prof’s will allow Wikipedia as a “source” and he goes to a state U.

[Does so]

Thank you.

Now I can wade through the half I skipped in the first post! LOL!

[Does so]

"...it is more for young teens and college students. Don’t worry about it too much..."

I worry, because too many keyboards of young teens and college students can be "aimed" at Wikipedia!

[SamAdams76]

Wikipedia is a good source for arcane "trivia" type stuff. For example, the Encyclopeida Brittanica would never deign to have an article on the independent rock band "Built to Spill". But Wikipedia gives you pretty much anything you ever wanted to know about the band including a full discography of their recordings. In fact, virtually every musician or group of musicians of note is represented by a detailed article on Wikipedia. This is because even bands with a tiny following are likely to have a few fans dedicated enough to put an article together on Wikipedia and then take the time to keep it updated.

Same goes with other esoteric subjects such as polydipsia (the medical condition of drinking too much fluid); a complete article on the movie "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and an article on virtually any city or town in America. No other reference source has such a breadth of information.

Another good thing about Wikipedia is that articles are instantly updated to accomodate recent events. Tennessee elects a new governor and it's there instantly on election night. Some movie actor dies in his sleep and the article on that actor is updated before breakfast the next morning. In fact, everytime I hear about a famous person dying, I go to Wikipedia to see if the article was updated and it always is every single time. In fact, I'm starting to think that hospitals and coroners are updating Wikipedia before they even alert the press.

So with any publication like this - where the public are allowed to update any article - you are going to have issues of politically motivated people posting information that is slanted to accommodate their own agenda. That's just part of the package. So if I want to read about Ronald Reagan, for example, I'd probably go elsewhere. But I just checked out the Ronald Reagan article over there and it looked pretty fair and balanced to me.

[Morgan in Denver]

I would not use FR as a source either. I use it to find links that are of interest and use the actual source for any quoting or reference I make. I do enjoy some of the FR comments so I read them on occasion but I mainly use FR as a resource to articles and news over comments.

Having said that, Wiki is not a good source for factual information on political, religious or historical information that is subject to debate by conservatives. But it remains a starting point for other issues or to beging researching a subject one is not familiar with.

[napscoordinator]

I worry, because too many keyboards of young teens and college students can be “aimed” at Wikipedia!

I understand your worry and in a way you are right, but I just think that if college kids and high school kids are using WIK than I highly doubt that they are even reading what it says and just copying and pasting the information to a word document. It is amazing how many kids “cheat” on their papers just to get them done.

[highlander_UW]

I would not use FR as a source either. I use it to find links that are of interest and use the actual source for any quoting or reference I make. I do enjoy some of the FR comments so I read them on occasion but I mainly use FR as a resource to articles and news over comments.

Good point. I would also not accept her using a reference to FR (unless the topic was FR), but I do find this site a good source for locating more primary sources to quote from, just as you have said.

Having said that, Wiki is not a good source for factual information on political, religious or historical information that is subject to debate by conservatives. But it remains a starting point for other issues or to beging researching a subject one is not familiar with.

Because it is a compromised source I tend to steer her away from Wikipedia, but if she used it to help her locate other sources I probably wouldn't stop her, but I would use it as an opportunity to discuss the inherent risks involved with using a known tainted source as a beginning point for any study.

Right now I have her studying logic, fallacies and soon to include information on debate as part of her social studies. I want her to be equipped to see the holes in arguments.

[Morgan in Denver]

Agreed. Answers dot com was not mentioned on this thread and I’ve found it to work almost as well as Wiki, for what that’s worth.

I remember a college course I had where I compared the same story in Time versus Newsweek. I was amazed at the difference between the two. Same story yet totally different perspective. I then compared it to US News & World Report and found a third difference. That was my initiation into political and PC bias in reporting and I’ve never forgotten it.

I also remember a funny story about Bill Clinton cheating at golf when he was in Australia. Reported there but ignored in the US. I’m sure your daughter will find lots of things just as interesting that prove the bias issue.

[Does so]

By "aiming", I meant that students (with heads full of Liberal mush and lots of time) can continuously and "liberally" edit Wikipedia until the rest of us give up.

[Caesar Soze]

1. No one responsible "sources" Wikipedia for anything other than pop culture ephemera. Wikipedia is an informative site, not an authoritative site. (That said, it is one of the most informative websites in the world, and is fairly reliable on most subjects.) I use Wikipedia all the time when I want information on something; but if I want to write with authority, I hit the journals and other standard references. Everyone with at least a high school education already knows to do this.
2. The only thing worse than citing Wikipedia is citing Conservapedia. The website is a joke in bad taste. But sometimes funny bits do turn up on RationalWiki's Conservapedia watch.

[Melas]

None of them should. When I was in college, you weren’t allowed to use the encyclopedia, period. A college level paper should be much deeper than any encyclopedia goes.

[highlander_UW]

Good point about checking the same story from different sources to see the bias. I’ll keep that in mind when I get to having her apply the current set of lessons. Thanks.

[PAR35]

Wikipedia is an informative site, not an authoritative site.

Good turn of phrase. You have said it more succinctly and accurately than did I.

[Morgan in Denver]

By the way, I forgot to mention something.

I have started using Answers.com lately instead of Wikipedia. One difference is Answers will source outside itself for information. It even references Wikipedia for more information.

http://www.answers.com/ is the link.