Wiki hate

[feihlination]

so, in nearly every thread with a "serious" dicussion (yes, insert internet serious business pic here) there is some sort of wikipedia quote and some other guy that thinks he has to sound intelligent and brings on the usual "wikipedia isnt a source, blablabla"

1. i am a student, and although everybody knows that wiki is not a citable source for papers, its still helpful. professors told me more than one time that they also start on wiki if they research something. easy way to get an overview over something.

2. just a little story. back in HS, i thought it would be hilarious to fuck with this international knowledgewebsite and added wrong info. i wrote that this guy

(karl moik, he moderated a german folk show) died during a hoe/drugs/alcohol orgy in spain. what shall i say? less than 1 hour, this stuff was deleted, and the school ip was blocked a while (kinda big thing if you can imagine)...

BOTTOM LINE: dont try to look intelligent by flaming on wiki. everybody uses it and i would give a hand for 95% of the info there. of course you have to be careful on things like hitler, holocaust, health care bill, 9/11 or so, but in general its way better than people say.

i know this wont change anything, but i feel like ranting.

oh btw, this wont work without quoting wiki at least one time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources

 

[jeremy.g]

all my teachers say its super unreliable but i have always found it to be helpful, its never let me down. when i was in middle school i kept fucking with entries from all the library computers and got our server kicked off of even accessing wiki. people were pissed

 

[Black-Bandanna]

http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/11/8296.ars

 

[feihlination]

i knew this thread was going downhill the second i saw your reply

 

[Guavajelly]

People just need to realize not to cite it as a source, its for general information to get you started like you said but morons like my roommate still cite it on the basis that more sources is better than fewer really good sources.

 

[PaleCelery]

What I do sometimes is cite the sources that wikipedia cites in the bottom of every article.

 

[Guavajelly]

yeah thats a little better, i do it too if im required to have a certain amount of sources which is bullshit cause it just forces kids to make up sources and use wiki.