How reliable is Wikipedia as a source of information, and why?
(This answer was written in response to an earlier version of the question)Evaluating the accuracy of a Wikipedia article is a lot of work, if you want to do it right, but here's what it would involve. Pick the article. Find the most authoritative secondary and tertiary sources on that same topic. Read and correctly understand these sources. Evaluate how what you have learned differs from the content of the Wikipedia article. Try to figure out cause for the discrepancies, by examining the sources cited in the Wikipedia article. You will probably find that the article was pretty good, but with some weakness. After you have done all this work, you will be in a very good position to improve the article yourself. (As an aside, I disagree with the premise of the question. For many purposes, Wikipedia is not only a good source of information, it's the best that has ever existed. It's not a "serious avenue for academic research", but then neither is any encyclopedia)
Are wikis reliable?
I don t see why people don t trust them. I mean sure anyone ca write in them but why would anyone do that, a lot of the superhero and movie wikis are really reliable based on facts from cannon sources so why doesn t anyone trust them?
Do you think wikipedia is a credible source of information?
When I attended college the first source my Professor said not to trust is wikipedia. It is an open source of info allowing anyone to enter facts, delete facts, and enter information without citing where the info came from.
Why should I believe the information on Wikipedia if anyone can edit it?
What makes Wikipedia such a reliable source is not the content in the articles, but that every point in each article is verifiable.In a traditional encyclopedia a subject matter expert writes what they believe to be the truth and in many cases they might be right, but we have to take their word for it. In fast changing fields and topics where new documentation suddenly comes to light this traditional model is becoming more and more unreliable.Wikipedia is different.All of the key points in a Wikipedia article must be properly documented, which means that any reader can check for themselves that the source says what the page author says it does and to get an idea of the reliability of that source. There are links to many source documents and sufficient information to access paper-only sources.Another unique aspect that makes Wikipedia more reliable is that behind every page there is a talk page where editors discuss the content of the published page. Reading the talk page you can get a sense of the solidity of any piece of information or point of view. Some are consensus views while others are hotly debated. You can see which points were debated and also find out what the minority opinions were. In the case of traditional media this debate, if there was any, is done behind closed doors and you are unlikely ever to find out which alternatives were discussed and how strong the arguments were.Equally important is the fact that all changes are visible to everyone. Nobody can silently edit an article without leaving a trace. We can see who changed what and when, comparing different versions to find the edits.In this way Wikipedia gives not just information, but the sources of that information and the means to gauge the reliability of these sources. Sometimes the evidence suggests that the information is so solid it can be cited without fear of contradiction; other times an article suggests some uncertainty so I look for alternative sources.
Where does Wikipedia get all it's information from?
I don't get it... there's an article on our school... I mean someone said that people contribute to the site. So people voluntarily wrote the 2million+ articles? And they are all accurate, containing good resources. Some topics have many pages of information. Who writes all this so usefully and descriptive. Where do people get all the resources from?
Is Wikipedia reliable?
It is as reliable as any other encyclopaedia... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia The articles are based on information published in reliable sources... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources and should have a reference section at the end of the article to show where the information has come from. You would use the sources found in the reference section as citations in your own work rather than citing Wikipedia itself (or any other tertiary level encyclopaedia). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia
How reliable is wiki answers?
Wikipedia and Wiki answers are useful for finding information that can lead you to reliable sources of information. No reputable educational establishment will accept and wiki as a reliable source of information. So, while using it can help you get the information that could help you, it has to be checked from another source for verification.