October 22 --> Wiki information any good?

In the reading "What's on Wikipedia and what's not . . . ?" by Cindy Royal and Deepina Kapila they speak about Wikipedia and how useful it is as a source. On page one they state that "Wikipedia is more a socially produced document than a value-free information source. It reflects the viewpoints, interests, and emphases of the people that use it (Kapila & Royal, Pg 1)." These two sentences perfectly sum up the whole article.

There are many factors that contribute to the inaccuracy of Wikipedia. Since Wikipedia is a wiki type encyclopedia, anyone can comment on it and change information about a certain topic. There is a board that reviews the changes on certain terms but that does not validate the accuracy of everything on the site. People may leave their own opinions on the site and they may have a biased opinion on a term. Upon reviewing a term that has favoritism toward a subject matter this reflects the opinions of others. So now we have an encyclopedia forming around biased opinions rather than being an information source. This is a highly viewed inaccuracy of the site.

Turning our attention toward the review of the literature on Wikipedia there are many inaccuracies as well. After looking at many articles on Wikipedia Denning, Horning, Parnas, and Weinstein (2005) noticed that found that much of the content is focused toward frequent internet users and the youth (pg 152). They also mention that much of late history is vaguely touched upon and may be inaccurate. These are important factors because alot of this information we are using in our essays for school and as scholarly sources. Again this is another downfall of the overall content of Wikipedia.

There are many views on Wikipedia as well as great information. Some may be biased and not what you are looking for. All in all I would try to find other sources besides Wikipedia when looking for information.



Royal, Cindy & Kapila, Deepina. (in press). What's on Wikipedia, and what's not . . . ? Social Science Computer Review.