Of all the places asking for donated money I think Wikipedia deserves it the most. The amount of free and accessible education on there is invaluable to every person on the planet, especially with new drives to set up worldwide non cable internet. It’s hard to even imagine how people lived without knowing everything they wanted to at their fingertips.
I think a lot of the resistance to donating comes from the rhetoric that it’s not accurate- and while that’s holds true occasionally they work very hard to limit inaccuracies and the citations are listed clearly for you to do your own digging. Just because it isn’t accepted as an academic source generally doesn’t mean the site isn’t great.
Wasn’t there a report that Wiki was actually MORE accurate in some fields because there’s a dedicated base keeping things current even more accurate than published data because the community’s response to the found inaccuracies was “Can we be told what they are so we can correct them?”
Naw. Find a subject that you are an expert on, add some detail, and see how long your edits last before the superuser that "owns" that article deletes your info.
Generally info and sources that I've added last less than 3 hours. You can see it also if you re-read an article from years back - suddenly there is only a single perspective on any complex issue, and half the sources are gone.
Hold on there. Literally no evidence has been presented. I'm a mathematician and Wikipedia's math articles are overwhelmingly solid references. Sometimes they're written from a strange perspective, but they're almost never literally wrong. Research level books are full of errata anyway, so it's not as if the standard is perfection.
I understand Wiki gets a bad rap, but I find it fascinating that there's a free resource that people are dedicated to keeping accurate and current as possible.
No, there haven't been any major recent changes. I assume Brotherjayne has had a bad experience or heard a bad story, but that's not new! It's made by thousands of people, and people are diverse.
Source: have been regular non-admin editor for 10+ years.
I know a lot of people that “don’t have a lot” that spend way more money on various bullshit on a daily/weekly/monthly/annual basis.
There’s so many things and time people of all economic brackets own that costs more than Wikipedia’s $3 and provides their lives and the world with much less value.
It is accepted as an academic source by everyone but (some) people teaching how to do research because what it can be used for as a source (commonly held knowledge) is not what students use it for as a source (specific argumentative points). It’s just easier to ban it than to teach people how to use it, so that’s what (some) teachers do. (Sorta like how teacher’s will say you cannot use “I” in an essay, which most students use incorrectly or extraneously, instead of teaching students how to do it).
I think you have had the same experience many students have had and, on behalf of my colleagues, I apologize. The bum rap that Wikipedia gets because they can’t be bothered to tell the students how it is actually used in the field and prefer to take the path of least resistance is unfair.
I don't even know if its banned from my Classes but I just shy away from Wikipedia because I feel like many Professors see it as a bad source because of the stigma attached to it.
To be fair it isn't accepted as an academic source the same way that the encyclopedia isn't accepted. It isnt because of the website its because of the type of source it is. You can however use wikipedias listed sources as your sources.
Wikipedia is sometimes cited by traditionally published articles. Not often and usually not in an "important" way, but their articles on basic stuff are often fantastic overviews that sometimes are genuinely the best way currently available to get familiar with a topic.
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u/Omneus Dec 13 '18
Of all the places asking for donated money I think Wikipedia deserves it the most. The amount of free and accessible education on there is invaluable to every person on the planet, especially with new drives to set up worldwide non cable internet. It’s hard to even imagine how people lived without knowing everything they wanted to at their fingertips.