Is Wikipedia A Reliable Source Of Knowledge

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

Wikipedia is the biggest source of free knowledge on the internet. Almost all of the material of the website is available for free use but the question is that can the information available on this website be considered as coming from reliable sources. To answer this question one must know the source of the knowledge available on the Wikipedia website. The content available on the wikipedia website is written by simple users like me and you. In fact any one who wants to add content to the wikipedia can add content to it. But why people write such long articles and content for wikipedia. Are they wasting their time or are they writing addicts? The best answer I found to this question is that wikipedia is ranked very high in google and if you you can get a back link from this website you can increase your Page rank as well and this help you greatly in your websmaster campaign. As far as the reliability of the content on wikipedia is concerned there are possibilities of wrong knowledge present there however if you go through their numerous pages you will find hardly any mistake or wrong information. How come that ? This is because the content for a title is selected and made from many numerous works and since many people become involved with it the chance of mistake becomes less and less.What do you think?

[yordan 10]

There are also some moderators, each of them being quite aware of a given subject. As a new article appears, or as soon as a given article is modified, the moderators receives a mail, he has a look and deletes the wrong info!

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

There are also some moderators, each of them being quite aware of a given subject. As a new article appears, or as soon as a given article is modified, the moderators receives a mail, he has a look and deletes the wrong info!

Yes there are moderators (like you in Xisto Forums) on wikipedia and yes that most of the knowledge on the wikipedia website is very very accurate but as far as the reliability is concerned, nobody can believe the information available there and that is why students are not allowed to use wikipedia as a reference source while they do some research on the internet.

[yordan 10]

The first question was "is this reliable", the answer seems to be "yes".A second, completely different question, would be "can Wikipedia be used as a valuable reference?"I would not be so strict as your teachers.I would accept it as a reference, provided that the student also gives several other "valuable" references. A valuable reference is an article published in a technical review, in which each article is fully reviewed by a committee. These committees are made of specialists of such questions, and are able to decide if a scientifical work has been correctly driven and if it's conclusions can be trusted. These articles can be stated as "true", or "correct".Wikipedia articles are "most people are stating this", "this can be supposed to be true", "you can try this", they are not "this is true", nor "this has been proven".

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

The first question was "is this reliable", the answer seems to be "yes".A second, completely different question, would be "can Wikipedia be used as a valuable reference?"
I would not be so strict as your teachers.
I would accept it as a reference, provided that the student also gives several other "valuable" references. A valuable reference is an article published in a scientifical review, inwhich each article is fully reviewed by a committee. These committees are made of specialists of such questions, and are able to decide if a scientifical work has been correctly driven and if it's conclusions can be trusted. These articles can be stated as "true", or "correct".
Wikipedia articles are "most people are stating this", "this can be supposed to be true", "you can try this", they are not "this is true, this has been proven".

It seems that you are a big fan of wikipedia that is why you have comments for which I cannot produce any answer. You are absolutely correct in your post that it is a valuable reference and who can regret from this fact that wikipedia is in fact a very very valuable source. (dont mind if the words are not of the quality in my posts as thaey should have been because I have a tendency to forget words).
I think there is misunderstanding in the understanding of the concept of the post. The concept behind the post was the reliability of the wikipedia articles not their quality. In my dictionary and as far as my use of words and their meanings are concerned, reliability means how others can believe the trueness of the source. (I admit that I might be totally wrong because my English is not so strong) You have pointed that there are moderators that keep the quality of the articles and content found on wikipedia but the fact that anyone can edit and enter information on wikipedia makes it a bit unreliable. I hope that this concept will diminish with time and the value of the content on wikipedia will get full marks deserved by it.

[Quatrux 4]

To make it short, personally I think that most of the information which is moderated and etc. is not false, but I believe that it cannot be "reliable" due to the fact that subjects can be edited by anybody and not all moderators can't know everything, even references can be bad/false.Nevertheless, I still say YES, because most of information on the Internet, on TV, on Radio, in Newspaper and etc. is not reliable, due to it can be false. But it's hard to control it, one year they say that coffee is bad for your health, after a year or so they say coffee is good for your heart and they all say that they have somekind of scietific test which they never refer too :)Most of people believe in information, in articles written by somebody without any proof or reference. As much articles as I read in Wikipedia with the knowledge I know, I don't remember false articles.

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

To make it short, personally I think that most of the information which is moderated and etc. is not false, but I believe that it cannot be "reliable" due to the fact that subjects can be edited by anybody and not all moderators can't know everything, even references can be bad/false.
Nevertheless, I still say YES, because most of information on the Internet, on TV, on Radio, in Newspaper and etc. is not reliable, due to it can be false. But it's hard to control it, one year they say that coffee is bad for your health, after a year or so they say coffee is good for your heart and they all say that they have somekind of scietific test which they never refer too

Most of people believe in information, in articles written by somebody without any proof or reference. As much articles as I read in Wikipedia with the knowledge I know, I don't remember false articles.

"the Q" you have made a really very good point here. I totally agree with you that almost everything we come across in our daily life is not reliable and so is wikipedia however I would like to make a comment here that in some things there is more probability of being non reliable as compared to others. And in my opinion this on a great extent depends upon the background. If we consider knowledge and information as the subject (that is in fact the subject of this post) then the probability of being more reliable or less reliable depends upon the source of the knowledge and information. If the sources are more reliable then the knowledge and information is more reliable but if the sources are probable of being non reliable then obviously the knowledge and information also becomes non reliable.
It is simple.
In case of wikipedia (I must tell you first that I am not against wikipedia rather I am a big fan of it but here I have to say the fact) the source of content is mostly unknown. Unknown in the sense that you do not know the person who entered the information is capable of giving the correct information or not. I admit that there are a number of moderators there but since their database is such a huge one that at any instant there may lie false information unobserved by the moderators.

But still wikipedia is the best source of knowledge on the internet.

[Quatrux 4]

Yes, in fact a newspaper article can be written by not telling all the truth due to somebody got paid to publish it, or some scientists can be paid to say partly the truth about something.. so it's quite false information, but people believe in it if it's quite logical or they don't know other facts..Some scandal can appear that that specific food can bring cancer, but really it doesn't, but people stop might buying it and will buy something else, it's hard to control information. ;]

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

Yes, in fact a newspaper article can be written by not telling all the truth due to somebody got paid to publish it, or some scientists can be paid to say partly the truth about something.. so it's quite false information, but people believe in it if it's quite logical or they don't know other facts..
Some scandal can appear that that specific food can bring cancer, but really it doesn't, but people stop might buying it and will buy something else, it's hard to control information. ;]

I am very impressed by your point "LOGICAL". The most superior factor in determining whether the information is correct or not is that whether the information makes sense or not. I will give an example that even if the Nobel prize winner for mathematics say that 2+2 = 5, obviously no one is going to believe him and people might think that his mental balance has been disturbed and he needs to be treated by psychologists. Here in this case the Logic of knowledge has over-valued the source of knowledge. So you made a very good point Quatrux

[mahesh2k 0]

Looking at the way, religious & political people edit and manipulate things i think wikipedia is no longer a reliable resource. Not just religion but it applies to many other topics. there are many pages on people too early even though they don't have milestones. People need to use it as pointer and for better solid references they need to look for something else. I have seen many articles manipulated at wikipedia and because of which i think it's better to keep wikipedia as salt+imperfect knowledge resource. There are some references for some articles that proves most of the articles are reliable but then again this doesn't apply to everything. Though there are moderator and libel control inside wikipedia but to some extent information is manipulated and is not what people expect, this is because if one starts to write about something cotroversial on which talk page goes long and long and the discussion ends without resolution and in such cases articles goes live without agreement ir even proper citation in many cases. There are many reasons to this but i think overall, it's worth a read if people are not aware of some terms and want to contribute about something on village pump.

[Ahsaniqbalkmc 0]

Looking at the way, religious & political people edit and manipulate things i think wikipedia is no longer a reliable resource.

I totally agree with you. I am a Muslim and one reason why I do not like wikipedia is that inspite of strong protests from muslims against the pictures of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) they did not take any notice of it. Now my point is that if you haven't seen a person, not even a picture of him, how ca you draw a portrait for him and say that it is a good one. Ain't it completely rubbish. In our community we give the most sacred of love and respect to our Holy Prophet and we believe that none in the world has been like him and none will be like him. SO in this case what is the meaning of drawing the portrait for such a personality even if your intent is not of making humor of muslim beliefs. That is why I say that as far as this thing is concerned, wikpedia has gone wrong.

[mahesh2k 0]

I totally agree with you. I am a Muslim and one reason why I do not like wikipedia is that inspite of strong protests from muslims against the pictures of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW) they did not take any notice of it. Now my point is that if you haven't seen a person, not even a picture of him, how ca you draw a portrait for him and say that it is a good one. Ain't it completely rubbish. In our community we give the most sacred of love and respect to our Holy Prophet and we believe that none in the world has been like him and none will be like him. SO in this case what is the meaning of drawing the portrait for such a personality even if your intent is not of making humor of muslim beliefs. That is why I say that as far as this thing is concerned, wikpedia has gone wrong.

If islamic people are this much conservative and extremist about their faith and views then surely they're threat to open mind and freedom of speech, expression. And i feel that art is freedom of expression in it's own way. Though i've my experience with extreme action from islamic people i can say that this issue from islamics is overrated. I mean does anything happen from god just because someone drawn prophet in right or wrong way. I mean people are too much sensitive. I don't how such people can care about freedom of speech and expression. I think there is no freedom to begin with if people are trying to take objection to little things like that. It's just opinion maybe few people in islam agrees with me if not all (which i'm sure all will never agree on point of freedom). Wikipedia is open resource and they did their best to keep or give knowledge to people, if islamics think that there side of religion is not supposed to be shared or discussed then they should make it clear to the world that they want solitude life. I'm sure no one will waste their time documenting islam in good or bad way and any part of it if people are such extremist.

[yordan 10]

Now the discussions seem to be deviating rather far from the original topic's subject.If you want to continue discussing about Wikipedia's reliability, staying in the present topic is OK.If you prefer exchange your opinion concerning Islam, you should rather open a topic in the "religion and philosophy" sub-forum.RegardsYordan

[mahesh2k 0]

Lol, yeah we diverted a little but i still think it's related to topic. I mean wikipedia village pump and talk sections are loaded with religious objections and content. So wikipedia and political and religious debates are quite common. I don't know if it totally diverts the thread but hey we'll try to stick with wikipedia and these issues.

[yordan 10]

OK, my mistake.I just realized that I use Wikipedia for a lot of things, except for religion.Because I know that religion is a matter of faith, so talking about religion means talking about one's own feeling.And of course, when somebody talks about his own feeling, the only reliable fact is that this is a personal feeling.So, now we come to a very philosophical question. Wikipedia is probably very reliable ; however for things concerning religion, the topics must be considered as a matter of faith, or as a matter of personal feeling. So it shall not be considered as proven.Exactly as the guy who claimed "I have seen God today". Probably he is right ; however, if he was alone at this moment, nobody else can confirm his vision.