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School vs. Wikipedia

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Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#391

Post by scifibestfi »

verisimilitudes wrote: post #236
scifibestfi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They should not, under any circumstance, have children "Googling" the answer to questions. Why not? Don't you Google answers to questions? It's what they will be doing most of their life.

> Don't you Google answers to questions? No. I don't use it at all. > It's what they will be doing most of their life. Everyday I hate this website and the people on it more.

What do you use? Or you don't search the internet at all?

> Everyday I hate this website and the people on it more.

Why?

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#392

Post by NegativeLatency »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #269
NegativeLatency wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most (all?) of my schools did have a subscription (early 2000's), but it was only accessible at school on the school computers, so I basically never used it, because I did my homework/research at home.

Most schools have off campus proxies you can use now

High schools?

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#393

Post by s0rce »

aimor wrote: post #89

Every now and then I like to read through Wikipedia pages for things I know more than the average person on. It keeps me skeptical of the things I read on there. For people unfamiliar with a subject (students) I think Wikipedia pages are misleading, poorly organized, and sometimes wrong. That doesn't make Wikipedia useless, but the author's best advice is to use Wikipedia as a map to other sources of information. I d…

I've read articles which I'm an expert on and found them generally quite good. Some very niche things often have really limited content but usually not wrong. I've fixed the odd thing here and there.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#394

Post by s0rce »

prova_modena wrote: post #221
MajimasEyepatch wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've definitely read some Wikipedia pages on niche technical topics in my field that were clearly written by someone with _some_ degree of expertise (maybe a grad student) but with no understanding of the purpose, standards, and style of Wikipedia. The voice is often all over the place.

Yeah absolutely. I've seen non-wiki-savvy experts do these kind of edits, get reverted, and stop editing wikipedia forever because the whole experience left a sour taste in their mouth. I recently found the essay below targeted to exactly that audience, it's super useful to helping experts who want to contribute. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Expert_editors

I tried to upload an image that I took (as part of my graduate studies) but was previously published by media outlets and the whole situation really turned me off wikipedia. I think the image is still there though!

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#395

Post by coding123 »

ravenstine wrote: post #7
jefftk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wikipedia should not be used as a source for academic purposes It's not a primary source, or a secondary source, but it's a great tertiary source for getting an overview of an area, and as a tertiary source (like other encyclopedias historically) it has a major role in academic work.

The nice thing about Wikipedia is that it is free of distraction, often very detailed, and has lots of citations that make it a great jumping-off point for finding other sources of information and verifying statements. Wikipedia, in my opinion, fails in that there is a bias with anything that remotely involves politics or health science. Students need to be taught that Wikipedia is NOT an objective source, and that b…

This is very true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unidentified_flying_object

If you read that, you will walk away thinking aliens have not visited this planet. Probably definitively believe it. The reality is, we have no fing clue if they have or not. You can feel the skeptics just edit all day long denying anything.

I'm sure by 2050 the article on god's existence will be less discussion on both sides and just say that people that believe are crazy.

If anything remotely falls under "pseudoscience" even if there is science backing parts of it up, wikipedia just completely bombs the crap out of believers.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#396

Post by sanroot99 »

aimor wrote: post #89

Every now and then I like to read through Wikipedia pages for things I know more than the average person on. It keeps me skeptical of the things I read on there. For people unfamiliar with a subject (students) I think Wikipedia pages are misleading, poorly organized, and sometimes wrong. That doesn't make Wikipedia useless, but the author's best advice is to use Wikipedia as a map to other sources of information. I d…

For technical stuffs Wikipedia is great ,and have good resources in further reading sections

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#397

Post by [deleted] »

Test0129 wrote: post #387
howenterprisey wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving aside your other points, it's beyond ludicrous to claim that Steven Pruitt controls anything on Wikipedia. Please take more care that you yourself don't repeat random misinformation about Wikipedia.

> it's beyond ludicrous to claim that Steven Pruitt Someone with millions of edits does not de-facto have the systems in place, the time, and the power to influence any article he puts his mind to? What I posted is inference, not misinformation, and worth considering despite the downvote parade happening on it right now by pro-wiki shills. To call what I posted misinformation is a sign of times. Inference is not misi…

[deleted]

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#398

Post by kmstout »

m463 wrote: post #272
throwaway09223 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you read through a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica? Have you done an apples to apples comparison? No encyclopedia is perfect, but as far as I can tell the "standard" encyclopedias are a lot worse. My grandparents had bought a copy of Britannica decades ago and they had something like 50 years of its yearbooks. I would cite it sometimes and no one at school batted an eye. I remember reading thro…

Maybe traditional encyclopedia might give wikipedia a run for the money on subjects, say toilet paper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper But wikipedia is far ahead on more practical articles like which way the toilet paper goes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper_orientation

Today, we learn about the toilegami.

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#399

Post by melagonster »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #284
aimor wrote: post #89

Every now and then I like to read through Wikipedia pages for things I know more than the average person on. It keeps me skeptical of the things I read on there. For people unfamiliar with a subject (students) I think Wikipedia pages are misleading, poorly organized, and sometimes wrong. That doesn't make Wikipedia useless, but the author's best advice is to use Wikipedia as a map to other sources of information. I d…

Here is a simple idea that AFAIK has not been tried. Limit "External Links" to only websites found in Google Scholar. More specifically, limit them to only academic sources. (Maybe limiting to .edu or country-specific educational TLDs, e.g., ac.uk, etc. is better. I realise Scholar is hardly a reliable filter for non-commercial sources, given Google's incentives. Remember "Knol".) This could be an option. Maybe an HT…

I understand your needs, but where people can find a academic resources to say their basketball team won a game?

Re: School vs. Wikipedia

#400

Post by rubslopes »

spc476 wrote: post #385
codetrotter wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I recently became aware of is that in some cases toilet paper orientation preference may be due to left handedness vs right handedness. I am right handed and prefer to have the paper oriented over itself. A member of my family is left handed and prefers to have the paper under itself. She once said that for her, with left handedness, having the paper under itself makes it easier to grab.

I don't think handness has anything to do with it. I'm left handed and I prefer the paper oriented over itself.

Me too.
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