How WikiPedia won the world

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How WikiPedia won the world

An encyclopedia that anybody can help to write - whether a pupil or a professor? Encyclopedia entries which are updated from one minute to the next? And all of that financed by reader donations?
 
Wikipedia is great! But I see it more as a Gateway to the actual real information. It is not enough to just quote Wikipedia alone (although we are all guilty of that), the key is to look at the references quoted in the Wikipedia articles and then research down those lines.

but yes... long live Wikipedia!
 
Garyvdh said:
Wikipedia is great! But I see it more as a Gateway to the actual real information. It is not enough to just quote Wikipedia alone (although we are all guilty of that), the key is to look at the references quoted in the Wikipedia articles and then research down those lines.

but yes... long live Wikipedia!
Click to expand...

This thing that's it's become non-PC to quote Wikipedia is actually bull and I suspect was started by those who have an agenda to suppress scientific fact (you know; those who believe in sky gods, young planets and souls trapped in volcanoes ;) ).

Reality is Wikipedia is extremely accurate and a study I recently read put it on par with the great printed encyclopedias.

As you say, it's also a great portal to more detailed info on a specific subject, but for most of our needs is more than adequate as a first (and often only) stop.

What is really sad is the fact with so much (good) knowledge available, we still seem to have people who will offer opinions on boards like these without doing any bit of research or reading. The ravings of the anti-cell-phone-radiation nuts come to mind.

Never in our history has so much knowledge been available in such an instant format, yet it seems the general population is dumbing down.

The first few minutes of Idiocracy puts forward an interesting explanation for this.
 
if it weren't for wikipedia, i'd be doing a lot of google searching and spending a lot of time reading.
the reason it succeeds is that it funnels all of the information overload for you into a summarised format.

if you have more expertise on a subject than the author, then the information can be improved.
for fairly neutral subject matters, i fail to see how wiki can present much of a bias.
sure, if you're delving into the areas of politics, aesthetics, religion and fields scholastic research, there's going to be differing opinions - i don't think that necessarily makes wiki unreliable: sources are given, disputed areas noted etc.
the problem when wiki started was that there weren't a lot of contributions in certain areas, but i should imagine that it's less of an issue nowadays.
 
^ LOL. I thought what is this guy on, but then I read the MS Encarta suggestion then I knew, we have an MS fan-boy in our mist.......I joke, I joke...
 
mfumbesi said:
^ LOL. I thought what is this guy on, but then I read the MS Encarta suggestion then I knew, we have an MS fan-boy in our mist.......I joke, I joke...
Click to expand...

In case you didn't know I am being sarcastic. I'm definitely no ms fanbooi
 
Does MS even still sell Encarta? I thought they moved it all to a Website?
 
American President

I thought Internationally, money note will have my face,right now I give that to Jimmy. Lets make people say I do not have Jimmy to buy bread than money to buy bread.....people. I have lost the battle for now.
 
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