Do you trust Wikipedia?

most of the time I would trust Wikki but not for accurate detail .

 

For my non-academic and day to day things I will use it and find it pretty reliable. If I am looking for information that is academic then I will use more scholarly and respected sources. Most of my teachers won't even accept any cited Wikipedia sources anyway.

 

I see it like you do. The celeb info is probably more likely to be false.

 

Once, Wikipedia told me that Tim Curry was the English voice actor for Dio Brando.
That would be awesome, but it's not true. (Besides, that edit is gone now.)

I normally use Wikipedia to find official sources, but if I'm just using Wikipedia itself, I take things with a grain of salt.

 

It is more reliable than pretty much every other source because of its enforced peer-reviewed nature. Intentionally make a small mistake on an article and then see how long it takes to get fixed (usually not very long at all).

There is a nice quote about its worth coming from another angle too:
"The mistake people make when they talk about not being able to trust Wikipedia is in the implicit assumption that we could trust encyclopedias as infallible sources before Wikipedia.

I like Wikipedia because I know it could be wrong. Regular encyclopedias can be wrong, too, but my guard was never up in the same way with them as it is with Wikipedia. I like Internet media specifically for the reason that Aaron Sorkin doesn’t like it: because it makes it that much more difficult for me to have any illusions about the fact that the burden of critical thought is on me.

I don’t automatically trust bloggers because a group of people I’ve never met decided to give them a badge that says “reporter” on it. I don’t turn off my critical thinking because they’ve gotten to be some sort of “professional”. I have to judge them on the merits of their writing and history of thoughtfulness or thoughtlessness alone. That is a feature, not a bug, because we should never trust any news media outlet implicitly."
On the Internet Everyone Knows You Could Be a Dog, or Why I Think Aaron Sorkin Is Wrong About the Value of Established Media Outlets | Research to be Done

 

I trust it. Teachers hate it, but I don't mind it. I don't look up any celebrities so I don't know how it is for them, but for science & stuff, sure!

 

I have some trust in Wikipedia. It is often a stop when I'm doing research. However, I don't blindly accept what an article says as 100% truth.

For that matter, with the Internet in general, one needs to be careful, and think critically.

At the same time, I am not sure how reliable conventional print sources are, either. A news publication should be neutral...but is it always?

 

A little too much

 

I've found a loophole around not being able to use wikipedia as a source. Just look in to their sources, see if they are from reputable sites, like .edu's or .gov's, and then cite them. It's an easy way to get facts quickly, but not everything in every article is trustworthy.

 

I never use Wikipedia to really learn too much on a subject, I get a general idea of what something is and then go to a better composed source of information c:

 

Yeah, same here. I like it for things like science like to OP said, but for other stuff, I try to find something that has a ".org" that's not Wikipedia, or ".edu" in it.

 

Yeah, but it's funny how much less biased it can be.

For example, I've studied the Napoleonic wars in French, English, and Spanish; the French and English wikis are remarkably more similar than official/formal French and English textbooks, which have far more nationalistic bias and omission/distortions of information. Of course it wasn't perfect, and the sources were mostly in the language of the articles, but they had less singular portrayals of the topics covered than most textbooks.

Something my old English teacher told me is that Wikipedia is best for specialist subjects; the only person who'll ever write about a rare species of Venezuelan frogs is going to be someone passionate and knowledgeable about it. It's more likely that they'll have perfect information and their own requirements for study, unlike more formal sources. Of course, it's risky studying anything with socio-political weight; the biases can be stronger, but the professional historical and reporting world has just as much, if not more bias.

 

I often trust Wikipedia more than other sources of information I read, even scientific studies.

There are often lots of simple mistakes, dumb omissions, wrong conclusions, bias or insignificant test samples in scientific studies, so you always need to watch out. Wikipedia is quite right though because of the peer review. Of course checking details and everything is needed, but that's just standard procedure when reading information.

Example: Food studies. Most can't be trusted (companies sponsoring those studies/scientists), while general articles about food in wikipedia can be trusted more.

 

For some things I guess, but it isn't always accurate.

 

While it's not always accurate, it is an excellent free reference, it is compact enough, it is an interesting read, and, if you don't find it on the Wiki page you are on, you'll find it on another page they link you to! I love finding tidbits of information, so I really like Wikipedia.

 

For somethings yes, for somethings no

 

I usually use it to check general info on it. For example, if there's a scientific theory, I'll most likely check Wikipedia about it. If I want concrete evidence, I'll go to peer-reviewed studies, or at least very reliable articles, possibly even the main source if I have access to it.

 

Just for basic info. Usually I seek the original sources. (Y)

 

It really depends on what information I'm looking for. If it's something simple, yes.

 

If it concerns science yes. For proofs: I consult ProofWiki, so for the sciences, yes I trust Wiki. But if I need to back up what have you, I go somewhere else.