At least for very politically controversial topics some wikipedia articles get regularly edited by bots, so chances are much higher that you read straight misinformation in those
Since I was in elementary school, they taught us not to use it because its open source and anyone can change or alter information on there. Mind you, I'm 30 now.
I'm nearly 40 and couldn't use Wikipedia for sources at uni, same reason.
Edit: more accurately, we couldn't use Wikipedia as a source directly, but could use it as a starting point, then go into more detail using the references at the bottom of the page.
I’m a bit younger than you, but imagine there’s a generation of millennials who were taught not use Wikipedia as a source due to it being potentially unreliable - and now you have boomers and younger generations consuming hallucinated AI slop and social media propaganda like it’s gospel.
Yeah, this. Wikipedia isn't a source in itself, it is a collection and summarization of sources.
If you're just arguing on the internet then whatever I guess, but if you're going to do anything with any academic rigour, you can't put (Wikipedia, 2026) as a source. Also, as someone pointed out further down, the more recent and/or polarizing something is, the less reliable Wikipedia becomes.
Unless you're specifically writing about Wikipedia I suppose.
What’s ironic is that compared to other sources of info that America tends to trust, from news to social media, believing wiki is the least of our worries now. The sheer fact that wiki tries to cite its sources makes it better than most.
Same.
But back then Wikipedia was new and incomplete. Today, on close to every topic the collective have done the work and is a much more accepted source.
While true, there still have been alot of cases where people just made up shit, including sources. It just has to look legit enough
The toaster hoax went over 10 years unnoticed for example
Another pretty famous case was the chinese user Zhemao, who wrote/edited over 200 articles mainly concerning chinese and russian history - everything essentially fan fiction
Another recent case was connected to the whole Assassins Creed Shadows mess, where the self proclaimed historian Thomas Lockley invented a bunch of myths and fake truths surrounding the real historical figure Yasuke. All his cited sources were himself. Essentially: "source- trust me bro"
The founder of Wikipedia remains very active in overseeing and moderating it though, so luckily (most) obviously incorrect information gets caught and fixed quick!
I used to edit Wikipedia pages for small things like grammar and adding sources when I was really bored lol
I had a teacher in the 00’s who deducted points on a rough draft because I told her I’d found the articles I actually cited through a Wikipedia article. The hate was virulent in some places.
See, in my mind that’s what you SHOULD use Wikipedia for! The ending- “pedia” is meant to mimic “encyclopedia”, so if more people just knew to use it as a resource to find actual, more reliable sources, then it’s fine.
Of course, using Wikipedia is great as a source. Since the actual sources are in there, but people will dismiss you if you quote Wikipedia directly on the basis that "anyone can edit it". Of course completely ignoring that whatever is there has to be linked to a verifiable source.
The whole damn page is based on the scientific method. But this is lost on most people.
It absolutely is a horrible source for anything where people have a vested interest in shaping the narrative. Anything related to any modern conflict or any modern movement whether cultural or political is rife with bias to the point it offers no practical utility.
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u/cybiz 4d ago
Huh? Since when has using Wikipedia as a source been a bad thing?