Science Journal: Wikipedia Pretty Accurate

[Celebration]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175003205

SAN FRANCISCO (AP)--Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that relies on volunteers to pen nearly 4 million articles, is about as accurate in covering scientific topics as Encyclopedia Britannica, the journal Nature wrote in an online article published Wednesday.

The finding, based on a side-by-side comparison of articles covering a broad swath of the scientific spectrum, comes as Wikipedia faces criticism over the accuracy of some of its entries.

Two weeks ago prominent journalist John Seigenthaler, the former publisher of the Tennessean newspaper and founding editorial director of USA Today, revealed that a Wikipedia entry that ran for four months had incorrectly named him as a longtime suspect in the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert.

Such errors appear to be the exception rather than the rule, Nature said in Wednesday's article, which the scientific journal said was the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia to Britannica. Based on 42 articles reviewed by experts, the average scientific entry in Wikipedia contained four errors or omissions, while Britannica had three.

[arcos]

1. oops... some DUers will hate this.... nt

[Meldread]

4. Why?

:shrug:

I love Wikipedia. I use it almost as often as I use Google. If I am searching for something that I am not familiar with, I look on Wikipedia, read about it, get a general overview, and that helps me better narrow what exactly I want to search on. More often than not Wikipedia also has external links helping me find articles and such... it is just a wonderful resource that I find invaluable.

[arcos]

5. I love Wikipedia too...

But some very loud people here consider it "useless".

[Meldread]

6. That's funny.

I've found it to be nothing but useful. It is so easy to use and has so much information. If used in conjunction with Google there is absolutely NOTHING - no subject that you can possibly think of - not covered or found.

I've spent countless hours using both. I couldn't imagine my life without either one of them now.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. I like the wickedpedia... how you spell that again? nt.

[greyl]

3. Yeah, raspberries to them. :P

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberries

edit: this was in reply to "oops... some DUers will hate this"