How bad is Wikipedia?
 

so, really. just how bad is it?
i see people saying on a common base that Wikipedia is near Worthless, however, i hardly ever saw bad or wrong info on the things i checked...

So, i really wanted to know... did any of you found or know of trully mistakes or faults of Wikipedia? Or you just dont trust it?

I really dont recall almost any mistake at all, and i do cjheck quite a big range of articles

Well, it's best not to trust Wikipedia solely. This and this readily spring to mind as reasons why, and that's just from 1up.

It's okay in my eyes to look over Wikipedia for a general idea of what happened, but by no means should it be relied on. I prefer to avoid it entirely whenever I want to learn about something important, but for casual knowledge I'll visit it. Even then, I usually browse around for some other sources, though.

For me it's not about mistakes, it's the huge amount of unnecessary information. Film and game plots are described in detail, connections are made, there's speculation everywhere in articles about fiction... it's just so very stupid.

Besides even the white-washing, if someone really had the drive to, they could get facts across Wiki changed to whatever they very well felt like.

Case in point: Stephen Colbert, King Amongst Men. After a single request on his show, he was able to get the Wiki entry for "Elephants" altered to include "Thanks to the efforts of Stephen Colbert, the African Elephant population has tripled in the last six months." He's done some other stuff to Wiki, but this is a good example.

Yeah, the Wiki mods were ale to change it back within a day, but still. With something so relatively easy to alter, how much shit has gotten through just as ridiculous as that?

That's my point... how much DID get past and how much is just fear that it may pass... if you browse around a half-dozen serious articles right now, how many errors can you spot? I always thought that this would be the way to check if Wikipedia is reliable or not...

yeah, people can edit it, but Mods change it back fairly quickly

I generally use Wikipedia for unimportant information. Such as, the characters in Avatar: The Last Airbender, Voice actors, book information, etc etc etc.

And by 'unimportant', I mean, stuff that it doesn't matter if I'm incorrectly informed (so, no school stuff).

I think it's pretty good for just general "so you know" information, personally.

Wikipedia is a fantastic resource for non-academic information. The Internet is in many ways a giant database of "unnecessary" information. Wiki has gone a little further and centralized much. It's communal and easily editted. This (in light of recent news) might seem like a bad thing, but you can be sure for every "bad" editor out there looking to vandalise there's probably 500 honest people that would like to see a proper, more accurate article.

And another beauty of the Wiki is you can consider the power of an article by looking at its references. It allows you to go beyond just the Wiki for information and consider how that article backed up what it said. The references could be bad, they could be good, they could be non-existent. In the end it's a subjective call.

So in conclusion, it's not bad at all.

As I told my genetics class when they had to do their assignments, if a word or concept comes up that they have NO clue about, Wikipedia is a great place to start. However, the fact is that its not a reliable source of information, and should never be used as a sole point of reference.

Still, I can spend hours on Wikipedia looking up random things. More often than not, it has a lot of good information on it.

It is a good site for info, you just need a few grains of salt.

Especially when an article says "So-and-so is the leading producer of awesome shit. Cuz their shit is awesome."

Or something like that.

Like CJ and Azisien said, wikipedia is awesome if you need to know some nerd shit.

How many turbo lasers are mounted on a Victory class Star Destroyer? Wiki knows!
How many rivets on a Mk4 Maximus Pattern Power Armour suit? Wiki knows!
How many panty shots are there in the second Chipmunks movie? Wiki knows!

I wouldn't use it to get any facts about things that are real, though.