On Wikipedia

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

OK, so this argument deserves it's own post.

In the last few days, wikipedia has been called "shittypedia", people have been laughed at for using it as a convenient source of general information and those of us who teach students how to use it have been called "brainless". I haven't been too diplomatic in my response to all of this; probably a combination of being sick and grumpy (not to mention a bunch of kids are up to no good around my place all the time and I have to keep going to tell them off) and also a combination of having to constantly fight ignorance about wikipedia in my workplace (I'm a teacher). There's a few points that need to be discussed.

Is Wikipedia Reliable

Firstly, what is reliable. Is the Encyclopaedia Britannica reliable? Should we expect there to be no mistakes? Should we take something written down as gospel? I think this is one of the great things about wikipedia; this very argument we're having. No source is 100% reliable. Every book ever written has at least one lie, half truth or deliberate omission in it. No source is truly objective and it's dangerous to think otherwise. In short, any source should be just one source amongst many. In 2003, an IBM study showed that most of the vandalism (a major source of the problems with wikipedia) is fixed before most users would feasibly notice it. This isn't always the case. For instance, that Joe McCarthy was the head of HUAC was on wikipedia for a full year before it got changed; one colleague of mine even had a parent come in and yell at him for marking down his daughters paper because of that fact; he was of the mind that because it was on wikipedia, it must be true. That's lunacy, but more on that later.

One also has to keep in mind that different topics have different levels of accuracy. A scientific topic is not going to be as disputed as a History topic; it's the nature of the fields. As this article in Nature shows, if you're after scientific or technical information, Wikipedia is every bit as good as EB. Indeed, Wikipedia is increasingly becoming an acceptable reference in peer reviewed journal articles (614 in 2009). A number I only see as increasing. There have, however, been some serious and real criticisms of some of the historical pages (Albania comes to mind). However, this is just representative of the fact that History is, by the very nature of the subject, disputed. If you think that the knowledge you have about an Historical event isn't disputed (beyond rather irrelevant things such as the people/nations involved, dates and places), it's probably because you haven't read a wide enough array of sources. Not only that, but if you learnt it decades ago at school, it's highly likely that the major opinions on the subject today didn't even exist when you learnt about it (the last 20 years has seen a massive rise in Post-Colonial and Feminist history; ie. history about the people that didn't matter to most historians (white males) who were dominant up until the 1980s). This leads me to the next part.

Know How To Use Wikipedia

Never, EVER take the information on wikipedia as gospel, without reading a bit further. For Historical items, the discussion page is a great place to start. If there is massive disagreement amongst the Wikipedia editors over a specific event, then it's highly likely that it is highly disputed in academic circles. After all, many Wikipedia editors are experts in their field. If there is a lot of dispute on Wikipedia, then it's unlikely you're going to be able to find out what happened with any degree of certainty, unless you're willing to use one source that agrees with the hypothesis you're putting forward (in other words, to be intellectually dishonest with your use of sources).

The next place to look is at the references. The Robin Hood article that someone scoffed at earlier today has a list of 107 citations for a 15 000 word article. That's about what you would expect out of a social science paper of the same length. There is a reference list of 27 books (again, fairly standard for the length), and numerous academic papers, conference notes and newspaper articles. Looks pretty solid right?

Not so fast! First, that specific piece of information you like, who is the reference? Google them, what else have they written, do they have peer reviewed research published? Are they employed at a reputable university? This can require some judgement calls, but all research ultimately is. This highlights the most important thing about Wikipedia; whilst it is good enough to settle arguments between friends or in online forums, for real academic work it is nothing more than a jump off point. It's where you get your overview and a good list of resources to hunt down. The discussion page shows you what things might be disputed so you can be skeptical of claims made with certainty in books that don't have the ability (or desire) to present such information.

If there is a statement on Wikipedia that has a [citation needed] after it, then disregard it. [Citation Needed] is one step from being deleted. The Wikipedia community has decided that there isn't enough information for the article to be strong, but it's not such an outrageous comment that it should be deleted entirely. Not all Wikipedia information is equal.

This leads me to the next point; featured articles. Featured articles are articles that have been rated as being of the highest quality. This is not an easy thing to get, only around 3000 of the some 3 000 000 articles on wikipedia are rated as featured. All articles get rated on the quality scale. From FA (featured), A, GA (good article), B and C. Articles deemed not complete get a stub or started status. This can be found on the discussion page, along with the history of the reviews for the quality scale. For the record, the Robin Hood article was rated a B. So perhaps the person who scoffed at using Wikipedia as the source was right to, but I would expect them to come back with exactly what they thought was the incorrect piece of information before writing off all the information.

What Is Wikipedia For

Should you be using wikipedia instead of academic journals? Are you crazy?!! Of course not. Wikipedia should be thought of best as an information aggregator. It is a collection of links that have been put together into a format that is pleasant to read. As a result it is not for original research. This is a big thing. Some have laughed and discounted wikipedia based on the fact that some pop tart couldn't change her own wikipedia to say she'd had a #1 single. Why should she be able to? Why should we take her word for it that she has had a #1. To think that people never make up things about themselves is to be somewhat naive I think. If someone wants to say something about themselves on wikipedia, then they need to have substantial evidence that other people feel the same way. Otherwise George W Bush could go on there and put "HE WAS THE BESTEST HUMAN EVAR!" and no one could dispute it because surely he's the best source on all things Bush.

Indeed, this is a problem with wikipedia; a problem that stems from the biggest problem with wikipedia. Most of the editors are white, male Americans. I'm not going to suggest that this is some vast conspiracy, or that these people are dissuading people from posting on wikipedia. Whilst I don't think it's the only factor, it is a factor that the biggest single demographic on the internet is white, male Americans. I'm not going to pretend that I can guess why these things are, as that would be silly without a longitudinal study with a very wide base and scope. However, this does mean that wikipedia has a tendency to have a white, male American bias, both in the information that goes online and the sources that it deems to be acceptable. However, the thing to remember is that wikipedia is open to all. If you think there is a problem with this part of wikipedia, if you think you see an article that shows this bias, do the entire species a favour and get on there and start contributing!. A good example of this is one I came across today (and I can't change due to the nature of the firewall I'm operating behind, so please, can someone go and change this). This is from the article on mercenaries. In the first paragraph:

A non-conscript professional member of a regular army is not considered to be a mercenary although he gets monetary reward from his service.

The use of the word "he" and "his" need to be changed to "they" and "their". Does this suggest misogyny? I don't think so, it just suggests that the kind of person who is interested in military history and science is not likely to be up to date on the latest ideas in gender studies. They probably wouldn't even have stopped to consider their use of gendered language. This isn't something that should be complained about, it's something that should be edited.


Hopefully my point of view now makes more sense and the fact that I actively encourage wikipedia use amongst my students no longer shocks you (the actual teaching of this in class is far more in depth and takes place across a semester at the very least). Hopefully some of you out there are now more informed as to how to use this fantastic resource to its full potential. Hopefully those who are uncritical about wikipedia will start to be a bit more critical and those who write it off as useless can see the full benefits of it.

I mentioned somewhere in these arguments this weekend that students at school today will probably never do research out of a book, at least not without the coercion of a teacher. Indeed, teaching kids to research online is vital, it means we don't have to spend lessons in the library (these waste so much time in a practical sense, the getting there, the lining up, the searching for the books, etc.), it means they can do research as homework, it means they will learn how to properly use this greatest of human inventions: the internet. Not to mention that the poor quality of most of the libraries in public schools I've seen (I doubt this would be much better in the US). High school libraries tend to be filled with crappy books of poor quality that are often decades old; in these cases I will take wikipedia as a source over these books any day. There are still schools in Australia using text books that teach that Aboriginals disappeared after European settlement (something that the almost exclusively Aboriginal school I now teach at find both saddening, infuriating and amusing). Wikipedia is definitely the equal of these kinds of sources. Not only that, but after teaching kids how to use Wikipedia I move on to teaching them how to use Google Books, the Google News Archive and Google Scholar. Students can get through my History subjects without ever touching paper, and I personally think they are better off, and have had a greater educational experience, for it.

Comments

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Unless of course it was misquoted and it bites you in the ass. Wikipedia is a great source for references, but you should get the actual reference and use it. Not because someone will find out you're using wikipedia, but because you aren't risking your credibility.

That's what I do, usually, with Wiki.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Skim the article, look at the sources, cite those.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

"if you're after scientific or technical information, Wikipedia is every bit as good as EB."

This has not been my experience. Wikipedia is incredibly uneven and suffers from outrageous misinformation on technical subjects. A good example would be the Plato pages, which for about six years were completely written around a theory that Plato's intention in the dialogues was to show how stupid Socrates is. Things like EB often suffer from sparse or idiosyncratic information on fringe subjects, but Plato is not a fringe subject.

[qnetter]

Nor is Plato a technical subject.

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

I'll inform the local philosophy departments.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Plato is scientific or technical? Also, large, peer reviewed study trumps your anectdata (see my references).

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

No source is truly objective and it's dangerous to think otherwise.

The problem is that a professional editorial tries to be objective via using the sources and facts in a way that tries to dig for the truth, while Wikipedia (sometimes, not always) uses facts in order to create an "objective" truth via consensus - this means trying to get more sides to a view than necessary in many cases, and relying mostly on editors with an interest rather than an experience in a subject.

This means that, while it may not be factually inaccurate in many cases, it may not be really objective. Say what you will about global warming, but it was only recently in that article's long history that any questions about whether it was real were even allowed to be mentioned in the main article. Compare Barack Obama's article to Sarah Palin's for another example - conservapedia is a complete and total wasteland for sure, but it exists for an unfortunate reason.

The worst, though, is that you often get people with a ton of knowledge for topics that aren't exactly significantly known. This allows for those people to create a well-sourced article that could have a lot of things wrong because their sources do, or because they're relying on primary sources without context, or simply because they don't understand what is being read. I suspect we'll be seeing more issues of that in the future.

As this article in Nature shows, if you're after scientific or technical information, Wikipedia is every bit as good as EB. Indeed, Wikipedia is increasingly becoming an acceptable reference in peer reviewed journal articles (614 in 2009). A number I only see as increasing

This article in Nature is from 2005, which was studied a little before Wikipedia really, really took off. I'd honestly love to see it run again more recently.

Wikipedia has its place as an initial source, as you're teaching your students. As a project for compiling knowledge, however, it is nearly completely worthless except for completely uncontroversial subjects given the inherent problems in an open format. As someone who's a big fan of crowdsourcing as a general option, this is a disappointment to me, but that's that. I do think people, for anything more than casual "I wonder what this is about" research, should avoid Wikipedia completely, even the source lists on the bottom, though. It's almost certain they just spent 5 minutes on Google to get them anyway, which everyone else could do.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

For the first time ever I completely agree with you, and furthermore think you stated this in an excellent way. The world paradigm must be changing! ;)

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I think I agree with most of what you're saying. And I would like to see an updated study done on the accuracy. My feeling is that it would be getting better over time.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

textbooks are dinosaurs. the sooner the academic world learns that, the better.

[moonchylde.livejournal.com]

I'm really surprised the academic world hasn't embraced ereaders yet. Seems it would solve some problems.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

The academic world knows this, administration? Well, that's a whole 'nuther game.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Those would be the dinosaurs that lasted 150,000,000 years as big reptiles and the theropods which survive today as birds, no? Doesn't seem that 215,000,000 years of the existence of the maniraptorans says anything bad about the dinosaurs.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

My partner's boy has just started highschool. His book list was 1 novel and an iPad.

[chessdev.livejournal.com]

A well written piece on wikipedia and how to consider it's uses ... nicely done.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Well, wikipedia would be proud to have you defend them. :)

I still don't see much controversy between your stance and what I've written, as the "brainless" quote pertains to accepting wikipedia as a proper source, which you, by your own testimony, don't do. Also, the examples given by me in the original discussion actually mentioned good teachers doing the exact same thing you are doing, only perhaps with more distinctly preemptive agendas. (since there is nothing to do about wikipedia's enormous popularity, the best thing to do is to teach about its limitations and how to handle it)

As great as your advice is on using wikipedia as a tool, you still probably need to accept the fact that many people misuse it grossly, that it is a flawed tool, and comparing it to other just as flawed tools isn't going to change that argument, nor is the notion that no tools are completely flawless. From an academic point of view, this should be pretty clear.

There are even big problems starting from the platform of wikipedia sometimes, if you're just starting to get to know your subject (you in a general sense, not personal), unless someone really follows your manual on how to go about it. Many people are not taught this way of thinking at all however, or are simply too lazy to do it anyway.

The conclusion is still that you like wikipedia way more than I do, and that I think it is flawed and deeply uneven in reliability - and unlike some other such tools, it is both very popular and influential. And unfortunately you took a generally stated opinion and transferred it onto rather deep personal levels.

It would probably be advisable to accept the fact that there are many people out there who know how to use wikipdia, know what it its for and its place among informational tools, and still don't consider it great.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I accept that people misuse it grossly. It was seeing this happen in high school classes (kids handing in essays that were direct copy pastas...) that got me started on formalising how to use it. This built into a realisation of how good it is to teach critical source analysis to teenagers.

I think it's counterproductive to dismiss it, and I think a lot of my opinions come from being an educator. It's going to be used, so rather than try to say "no, don't use it" I think it's better to say "use it in this way". This is why I think it's irresponsible for high school teachers to be pretending it doesn't exist or banning it. Kids don't use dead tree books anymore. They just don't. No amount of wishing they would, or forcing them to, is going to change that. One has to accept that we live under a new paradigm and work with it, not against it.

I actually think our opinions are probably quite close, we just allowed ourselves to get passionate and hyperbolic over the last few days. But that's the internet! ;)

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

I was just looking at the wiki on Asia.

"Asia is the birthplace of all world religions."


I wonder how scientologists feel about it.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

However they're told to feel, I'd imagine.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Scientology is a world religion? That's like calling a sports championship only participated in by American teams a world series.

Here is a good summary on wikipedia

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

This guy pretty much sums up my opinion on it all, and has some good thoughts on how to seek references for research, define wikipedia and use it when necessary (http://wikiway.net/index.php5?title=How_to_use_wikipedia)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

There are some articles where Wikipedia simply cannot be trusted, full-stop. There are parts of the WWII entries that have decidedly pro-Axis standpoints, and the entire gallery of Polish history is entirely incorrect. The entry on the Kielce Pogrom is typical of the lot, blaming the Axis and the Jews for the Poles pogroming the Jews there. When in reality it was old-school Polish Jew hatred re-asserting itself in the first days of Polish Sovietization. There was even an entire cabal of people who are known elsewhere on the Internet for pushing a uniquely Polish brand of racism that is simultaneously Jew-hating, anti-Russian, and anti-German and everything to the Rhine is really Polish.

There are several pages related to US history that are equally laughable. The article on American imperialism is extremely short. Despite that it is a very real concept and one with a lot of truth in it. Wikipedia's biggest problem in its history articles is that it is nationalism run amuck. And the US history and Polish and Armenian history articles are extreme examples of a general problem.

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

I have a whole gallery of articles and links with factual faults and problems on wikipedia. I was pondering posting them and link bombing, but as I don't want to quarrel too much about a phenomena that isn't going a way or changing much, I didn't. Plus link bombing is pretty lame in general. But since a couple of experiences of my own, similar to yours (but not restrained to the field of history) I follow wikipedia and what happens there pretty closely.

There are even groups of scientists who feel that their subjects have been so poorly treated, that they have joined anti-wikipedia networks, such as wikipedia review, antisocial network and encyclopedia dramatica.

The OP has a sound argument for how to use wikipedia, but I have to wonder what the point is in becoming so angry from criticism that is factual in shade of the mere fact that this web-tool/organization is so powerful and influential, it hardly needs any advocates.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

Just did a quick look at the Kielce Pogrom wiki. It's C rated (the lowest), other editors mention issues with POV and soviet involvement. So they've already raised the same problems you have. In fact, I'd say you're far too certain that your opinion is correct.

But you're right, there is a lot of nationalism run riot. That's why it's so important to read the discussion pages, to see how contested the history is. Historical articles are probably the worst on the site, but that is due to the contested nature of history. You should know enough about history to know that nothing can be said with any certainty.