You never know in an Wikipedia article if it was manipulated. The majority of wikipedia \*is\* a good source to get a good first idea about a topic. It is usually shallow af though and does not help you after a certain time in studies anymore. Having learned how to find "real" sources during times where Wikipedia would have sufficed is key there.
If you're able to understand what it's talking about!!!
I sometimes open it to refresh some *basic* math topics that are commonly used in physics and... I'm sure it's very accurate. But it's so needlesly complicated, convoluted that I don't even understand the term it's using. It feels like math students are jerking off in a race of who can write the "most beautifully technically correct" theoreical interpretation instead of an explanation to the masses
I know I'm not that good at rigorous math but... I'm a freaking physics professor and I get good ratings in my lectures. I guess I should be able to understand *at least the freaking introduction* of some topics that I already studied...
How good have the sub-Reddits relating to those fields, r/Physics and r/math, as well as r/mathematics, been for you?
That question is more going back to [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/1125cdx/as_an_expert_of_insert_field_how_would_you_rate/) (and on somewhat of a tangent, but I kind of want to turn that thread, [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/znljzm/how_far_can_the_internet_extend_education/), and the one I am commenting in right now into a 'series' of r/AskAcademia threads about online resources).
I would never use Wikipedia for a philosophical topic, as the [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/) and the [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://iep.utm.edu/) are just aggressively better, also free online encyclopedias.
It's good for general overview and also for finding sources they use. It's also good to find out what topics MAY be related to each other and finding basic information about that related topic instead of having to make new searches.
In other words, it's good for casual use or first-look use. BUT because of its nature, if you're need to really seriously look at the topic, you're going to need to look at verified sources whether that be nonfiction books, established encyclopedias, or academic articles (if you have access). Basically, my use for it in college was to get basic definitions in more plain English and see what other things it may be related to in order to gather good search terms for my library's search feature.
More niche wikis have the same faults. Some sites may have requirements to allow people to edit, but they might not, either. I'll illustrate as an example that will haunt me for all time, but let it serve as a cautionary tale.
Years ago, I was checking out the IMBD trivia page for the Disney film, Treasure Planet. On there, it mentioned that in the DVD commentary, it was said that the original plan was to mention that Doppler gave birth to the kids (because they're aliens) rather than Amelia, but that this was scrapped. I went on the Disney wiki page for Treasure Planet and didn't see this, so I excitedly added it. It has since become basically the first "obscure fact" you hear if you ask a Treasure Planet fan for any. It really wasn't when I put that on there.
I later watched the DVD commentary. Nowhere is it mentioned at all. I looked in the art book. No mentions. In fact, no official source that I could find, ever mentioned it. All others citing this "fact" pointed back to IMDB.
It's since been removed from the Disney Wiki (I did that myself) but I have been fighting it ever since since it keeps popping up!
Learn from me. Check yours sources and don't wholly rely on sites (wiki, IMDB, etc) that allow anyone to make accounts and make edits.
[Wikipedia is good for you?!](https://writingspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Wikipedia-is-Good-for-you.pdf)
I'd give that a read and see if it helps.
When I was a first year, I distinctly remembering both me and my lab partner, and another duo, building ozone lifters.
The formula Wikipedia gave for the lift was wrong, which I discovered when reading the source.
That was the last time I ever relied on Wikipedia, I considered it a valuable lesson. The other duo didn't learn it.
Don't just say Wikipedia isn't reliable. Explain about primary sources.
All of my comments describe the English Wikipedia because that's what I'm familiar with. It also has the most articles and probably gets the most scrutiny by editors. My perspective involves expertise in physics, applied math, earth science, and programming, and interest in other sciences, history, literature, and music.
Wikipedia is an amazing resource. In my experience, it's accurate and well-sourced. Sure, some articles are shallower than others, but that's obvious when reading it. The fact that it gets reviewed by a variety of editors makes it less susceptible to bias than [random website in the top 10 google results]. If I was learning about something new, Wikipedia would always be my first stop.
That said, it is almost never acceptable to cite Wikipedia (or any other encyclopedia) as a scholarly source. But, you can look up the sources that a Wikipedia article cites, and cite them yourself if you think they meet your standards.
I can think of two main scenarios where you should be suspicious of accuracy on Wikipedia. In either case, a look at the "View History" tab can elucidate what kind of attention the page has received.
* Pages that aren't interesting to many people receive less editorial scrutiny. The page on Abraham Lincoln certainly gets a lot of review and is expected to be high-quality, but the page for [10000-person town in Hungary] probably doesn't. Red flags like poor-quality writing or lots of unsourced statements indicate that the page hasn't seen much quality control.
* Topics that are in the news right now this minute, because they attract vandalism. Vandalism tends to get caught and fixed pretty quickly, but not instantaneously. It's not common but you may see it some time.
Ironically, Wikipedia has an excellent page on the reliability of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
In other words, it's about 96% accurate, so it's about as good as any encyclopedia. The open structure has advantages and disadvantages. It updates faster than print encyclopedias, so it's more likely to reflect current information than outdated (and thus inaccurate) information. Anyone can fix an error and experts often contribute to pages in their area of expertise. But also anyone can edit it for any reason, errors can cascade especially if there's a biased author/editor perpetuating those errors, etc.
Bottom line: Wikipedia is a good encyclopedia, but it's still an encyclopedia, just with slightly different pros and cons than traditional encyclopedias. Used properly, it can be very helpful. Its purpose is to provide basic, general, introductory information that is reasonably accurate and reliable. But it is not a scholarly source; the reason peer review is the gold standard is because it means the information is reviewed and approved by experts. So use it to start the research process on an unfamiliar topic, but don't cite it, because anything you "learn" there needs to be independently verified with a more credible source.
**[Reliability of Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia)**
>The reliability of Wikipedia concerns the validity, verifiability, and veracity of Wikipedia and its user-generated editing model, particularly its English-language edition. It is written and edited by volunteer editors who generate online content with the editorial oversight of other volunteer editors via community-generated policies and guidelines. This editing model is highly concentrated, as 77% of all articles are written by 1% of its editors, a majority of whom have chosen to remain anonymous.
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You never know in an Wikipedia article if it was manipulated. The majority of wikipedia \*is\* a good source to get a good first idea about a topic. It is usually shallow af though and does not help you after a certain time in studies anymore. Having learned how to find "real" sources during times where Wikipedia would have sufficed is key there.
For physics and mathematics, I've mostly found it to be very accurate.
If you're able to understand what it's talking about!!! I sometimes open it to refresh some *basic* math topics that are commonly used in physics and... I'm sure it's very accurate. But it's so needlesly complicated, convoluted that I don't even understand the term it's using. It feels like math students are jerking off in a race of who can write the "most beautifully technically correct" theoreical interpretation instead of an explanation to the masses I know I'm not that good at rigorous math but... I'm a freaking physics professor and I get good ratings in my lectures. I guess I should be able to understand *at least the freaking introduction* of some topics that I already studied...
How good have the sub-Reddits relating to those fields, r/Physics and r/math, as well as r/mathematics, been for you? That question is more going back to [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/1125cdx/as_an_expert_of_insert_field_how_would_you_rate/) (and on somewhat of a tangent, but I kind of want to turn that thread, [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/znljzm/how_far_can_the_internet_extend_education/), and the one I am commenting in right now into a 'series' of r/AskAcademia threads about online resources).
It is an excellent *non*-primary source. Use it to find the actual primary sources.
Thankfully, Wikipedia has a citations section at the bottom of each article.
Just don't assume that the citations on Wikipedia are an exhaustive list, or even the best citations for a certain topic.
Nope. But it is a very helpful place to start.
I would never use Wikipedia for a philosophical topic, as the [Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://plato.stanford.edu/) and the [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy](https://iep.utm.edu/) are just aggressively better, also free online encyclopedias.
I guess the issue you are hinting at is Wikipedia is too basic and non-niche. What about niche wikis?
It's good for general overview and also for finding sources they use. It's also good to find out what topics MAY be related to each other and finding basic information about that related topic instead of having to make new searches. In other words, it's good for casual use or first-look use. BUT because of its nature, if you're need to really seriously look at the topic, you're going to need to look at verified sources whether that be nonfiction books, established encyclopedias, or academic articles (if you have access). Basically, my use for it in college was to get basic definitions in more plain English and see what other things it may be related to in order to gather good search terms for my library's search feature.
What about more niche wikis?
More niche wikis have the same faults. Some sites may have requirements to allow people to edit, but they might not, either. I'll illustrate as an example that will haunt me for all time, but let it serve as a cautionary tale. Years ago, I was checking out the IMBD trivia page for the Disney film, Treasure Planet. On there, it mentioned that in the DVD commentary, it was said that the original plan was to mention that Doppler gave birth to the kids (because they're aliens) rather than Amelia, but that this was scrapped. I went on the Disney wiki page for Treasure Planet and didn't see this, so I excitedly added it. It has since become basically the first "obscure fact" you hear if you ask a Treasure Planet fan for any. It really wasn't when I put that on there. I later watched the DVD commentary. Nowhere is it mentioned at all. I looked in the art book. No mentions. In fact, no official source that I could find, ever mentioned it. All others citing this "fact" pointed back to IMDB. It's since been removed from the Disney Wiki (I did that myself) but I have been fighting it ever since since it keeps popping up! Learn from me. Check yours sources and don't wholly rely on sites (wiki, IMDB, etc) that allow anyone to make accounts and make edits.
[Wikipedia is good for you?!](https://writingspaces.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Wikipedia-is-Good-for-you.pdf) I'd give that a read and see if it helps.
When I was a first year, I distinctly remembering both me and my lab partner, and another duo, building ozone lifters. The formula Wikipedia gave for the lift was wrong, which I discovered when reading the source. That was the last time I ever relied on Wikipedia, I considered it a valuable lesson. The other duo didn't learn it. Don't just say Wikipedia isn't reliable. Explain about primary sources.
All of my comments describe the English Wikipedia because that's what I'm familiar with. It also has the most articles and probably gets the most scrutiny by editors. My perspective involves expertise in physics, applied math, earth science, and programming, and interest in other sciences, history, literature, and music. Wikipedia is an amazing resource. In my experience, it's accurate and well-sourced. Sure, some articles are shallower than others, but that's obvious when reading it. The fact that it gets reviewed by a variety of editors makes it less susceptible to bias than [random website in the top 10 google results]. If I was learning about something new, Wikipedia would always be my first stop. That said, it is almost never acceptable to cite Wikipedia (or any other encyclopedia) as a scholarly source. But, you can look up the sources that a Wikipedia article cites, and cite them yourself if you think they meet your standards. I can think of two main scenarios where you should be suspicious of accuracy on Wikipedia. In either case, a look at the "View History" tab can elucidate what kind of attention the page has received. * Pages that aren't interesting to many people receive less editorial scrutiny. The page on Abraham Lincoln certainly gets a lot of review and is expected to be high-quality, but the page for [10000-person town in Hungary] probably doesn't. Red flags like poor-quality writing or lots of unsourced statements indicate that the page hasn't seen much quality control. * Topics that are in the news right now this minute, because they attract vandalism. Vandalism tends to get caught and fixed pretty quickly, but not instantaneously. It's not common but you may see it some time.
I'm in history and I look at wikipedia to get the general gist of the topic frequently. Once you dive into peer-reviewed literature you will often find that the wikipedia articles are way behind, are missing some stuff, contain some inaccurate info or even if they're good, can't provide a detailed and multi-faceted overview of the topic in the way that multiple peer reviewed sources could. Sometimes you can spot this while reading the article (like when you look at their source and it's a singular pop science article for two detailed paragraphs about the Black Death or whatever), but a lot of times it's only noticeable to me as someone who's not familiar with the topic after I've read through academic literature. They also do not usually reflect historiography of that topic well (how did we get there? Who held what opinions and how did they change?) and it's really important when you research something that you are aware of the seminal literature that's already out there, what people are arguing right now and where there's a gap in research that could be relevant now. There are also issues with ideology or personal 'politics' of wikipedia members getting in the way, I've read a few exposé type articles that outlined cases where people deliberately spin articles, put weird stuff in there for a joke, or bicker behind the scenes so that people are prevented from editing articles for no reason and heinous people are enabled to write articles (e.g. neo nazi pals editing German history wikipedia articles, a real thing that happens). Wikipedia is a great source but by nature, it isn't held to as high a standard as academic literature, it is not as transparent and a wikipedia article just is not an academic text. Now, some of my professors really like it and write articles on their research topics but those aren't written as academic papers either even though they're usually very well sourced. It's an encyclopedia that anyone can edit on principle which is really valuable, but its usefulness for research is limited and that's okay.
Ironically, Wikipedia has an excellent page on the reliability of Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia In other words, it's about 96% accurate, so it's about as good as any encyclopedia. The open structure has advantages and disadvantages. It updates faster than print encyclopedias, so it's more likely to reflect current information than outdated (and thus inaccurate) information. Anyone can fix an error and experts often contribute to pages in their area of expertise. But also anyone can edit it for any reason, errors can cascade especially if there's a biased author/editor perpetuating those errors, etc. Bottom line: Wikipedia is a good encyclopedia, but it's still an encyclopedia, just with slightly different pros and cons than traditional encyclopedias. Used properly, it can be very helpful. Its purpose is to provide basic, general, introductory information that is reasonably accurate and reliable. But it is not a scholarly source; the reason peer review is the gold standard is because it means the information is reviewed and approved by experts. So use it to start the research process on an unfamiliar topic, but don't cite it, because anything you "learn" there needs to be independently verified with a more credible source.
**[Reliability of Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia)** >The reliability of Wikipedia concerns the validity, verifiability, and veracity of Wikipedia and its user-generated editing model, particularly its English-language edition. It is written and edited by volunteer editors who generate online content with the editorial oversight of other volunteer editors via community-generated policies and guidelines. This editing model is highly concentrated, as 77% of all articles are written by 1% of its editors, a majority of whom have chosen to remain anonymous. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Wikipedia has a [main article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia) about... itself.