How do you guys feel about Wikipedia?

At times I feel like finding out if midget wrestling actually exists, what the ethnic food of Sri Lanka is, what place did T-Rex's "20th Century Boy" reach on the singles charts, or what the scientific explanations behind the number 42 are...

 

lol, type: the answer to life the universe and everything in a google search.

 

Yeah, that one is pretty good.

I was impressed with google when I stumbled upon that.

 

man i fucking love hitch hikers guide.

 

For a few years before they found the glitch, you can type in
"Miserable Failure" and George W. Bush came up.

 

I absolutely love wikipedia, and side with BraveSirRubin in this debate.

 

Upon more consideration, I am siding with Pavel as well. Wiki is mostly accurate, and like he said, whenever you aren't totally sure, just check the origin. Never can be too safe anyways.

 

I do like the fact, that for one brief night, it was uncontested as fact that I was the worlds strongest secret agent.

 

wikipedia is anything but infallable. they sure do have a lot of articles that need cleaning up and have their neutrality questioned by the people who run the site.

 

Eli, do you have some links to pages that prove its continued inaccuracies?

 

Wikipedia can be fixed instantly and its free... its an ongoing project that in a matter of years will usurp any other source of encyclopedia style info, just as open source programs eventually poop on their not so community oriented counterparts (firefox/IE).

While microsoft may have started things off, the mozilla project continues to evolve by community support... MS is bound by cooperate goals and restrictions, mozilla isn't. The argument translates directly to (insert paper source of info) vs wikipedia.

Its the age old newspaper vs internet debate... the net's constantly updated nature combined with its incredible archival ability trump yesterday's news that killed a tree, IMO...

 

i love wiki

then on the other hand, i love having access to scholarly articles/journals and the like at the tip of my finger from school

 

Would it not be preferable to have all of the above at the tip of *everyones* finger, as opposed to having the epitome of scientific information dealt only to those who can afford to pay for it?

Knowledge should never be privileged... that is the direction things are heading with the net anyway, gladly

You should throw in a link to a cool scientific journal you recently checked out, if possible

 

i know with a boston public library card you get access to lots of the same journals i get at school. its what i use when i'm at home.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/

i've read some stuff on there recently - its all for free too

 

I love it. I visit it at least once a day when I need to look up something.

Now, Uncyclopedia? That's another story.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Kitten_huffing

 

Ahhh, something that requires a pre-requisite to understand... I like

 

Kitten huffing eh? That's a new one

 

Yeah, I thought that was a pretty funny story.

Uncyclopedia is editable just like Wiki, but it's all bullshit. That's what makes it interesting.

 

Ya that is pretty funny. Ill have to look at the website more.

 

I use Wikipedia sometimes. But there is also truth to what Elijah brought up, because it has been discovered that FBI and CIA computers have been, and are used to edit Wikipedia entries. This has been reported by mainstream sources, like Reuters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1642896020070816?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews&rpc=22&sp=true

The fact is, everything you read needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, everything.

Here is a website you all need to check out:

http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/

Shame on the people who attacked posters for questioning the validity of Wikipedia, especially considering that ANYONE can edit and/or make entries there. This is the same mentality that believes the corporate media would never lie to you.