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Talk:Reliability of Wikipedia

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Jacob805 (talk | contribs) at 01:17, 19 October 2023 (→‎Wikipedia ... credability). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Citing Wikipedia articles from outside of Wikipedia

There is a long-standing rule that Wikipedia articles may not be cited by other Wikipedia articles, nor should Wikipedia ever be cited from academic papers. At the same time, there are papers analyzing the reliability of Wikipedia, the operation of Wikipedia rules (e.g. NPOV) which are intended to help maintain content quality, and the speed with which vandalism is typically reverted.

The reliability of Wikipedia is commonly reported as approximating that of other sources, and it seems like they are advocating that the use of Wikipedia as a cited source is approximately as valid as a citation to traditional encyclopedias.

Is that the actual intent, or am I reading more into this than is actually there? Fabrickator (talk) 18:02, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You said that "nor should Wikipedia ever be cited from academic papers" but that is no longer seems to be the case. "Wikipedia’s citation rates in scholarly publications have been consistently increasing", according to research by Taemin Kim Park, 2011. Mateussf (talk) 01:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A brief perusal of articles about this in Wikipedia (using the google search site:en.wikipedia.org wikipedia-should-not-be-cited-in-academic-papers) seems to suggest that it is fairly common for citing Wikipedia to be unacceptable.
However, I am not so blase about this not being totally unacceptable, because there is no requirement either that changes be reviewed, much less that they be reviewed by competent persons. There is no process in place that ensures that every change gets reviewed in some finite time frame, and there's no process in place that for every change, a reviewer will suffer substantial consequences for failure to recognize erroneous content. In a conventionally published encyclopedia, the reputation of the article authors is at stake.
If I want to get on Wikipedia and screw around with an article, I can. The false information I've added might be detected in a couple of minutes or may last for years. When I see the phony information I posted actually being reported in the media as true or being cited in an academic paper, it's hilarious. Fabrickator (talk) 03:43, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Any academic article using WP as a source would be of low quality. There is a good reason why WP should not be used as a source, that being that the majority of articles are pretty useless. WP could be used to get a general overview of a topic a reader knew nothing about, but that is about all. I am quite astounded at times when I see what is written about topics I know something about. Often articles that initially look good have a poor use of sources, are unbalanced and agenda based. Having said that, encyclopedia britannica is often just as bad and that is usually regarded as more reliable as a source. You cannot overcome the fact that most WP editors don't have a clue and they are checked on by editors who also don't have a clue. WP is a fantastic online encyclopedia with many benefits but lets not forget its inherent limitations. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 16:14, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Claiming 'Wikipedia is without bias due to widespread usage via users'

While users can contribute to Wikipedia, these suggestions, edits and discussions are all curated by a group of primarily anonymous individuals who are ranked as having a more valued viewpoint than any of the individual users, being given the ability to decide what is true or false along with what is shown to the general userbase. This would naturally mean that Wikipedia is susceptible to biases, most notably political and social biases along with communication biases through how information is relayed.

The article should acknowledge that Wikipedia by definition of its structure of having moderation is susceptible to a level of widespread and unchecked bias. 2A00:23C7:807:C601:AC20:FDFE:6D0B:4A3D (talk) 23:03, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Quote from the lead: "Its editing model facilitates multiple systemic biases: namely, selection bias, inclusion bias, participation bias, and group-think bias."
We good? Paradoctor (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No he is referring specifically to power users of the website who have a higher tier of privileges than a common editor, and have the ability to control the content of many articles when the padlock features in the top right-hand corner. Why is there no mention of this within this article? The biases of that extremely small group of users obviously affects the articles that they control through the locked article feature. 182.239.135.70 (talk) 21:39, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean extended confirmed users? Thats not an extremely small group, its basically anyone with an account who has edited for a month or two. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:41, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Christine Lagarde and Jimbo Wales

Would something about Talk:Christine Lagarde#BLP issue qualify for addition, maybe to the "false biographical information" section? The fact that Jimbo Wales is involved seems to make this incident notable. Renerpho (talk) 06:38, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For the purposes of inclusion in Wikipedia an incident is considered notable if it has significant coverage in reliable sources. Is there such coverage? A discussion on a talk page on Wikipedia does not qualify. —⁠andrybak (talk) 16:23, 30 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia ... credability

Co found says that it has become a left leaning propaganda machine. Jacob805 (talk) 01:15, 19 October 2023 (UTC

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