Nature mag.: 'wikipedia as reliable as Encyclopaedia Britannica'

[rman]

Nature
Internet encyclopaedias go head to head
14 December 2005

Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries, a Nature investigation finds.
Jim Giles
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html

One of the extraordinary stories of the Internet age is that of Wikipedia, a free online encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. This radical and rapidly growing publication, which includes close to 4 million entries, is now a much-used resource. But it is also controversial: if anyone can edit entries, how do users know if Wikipedia is as accurate as established sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica?

Several recent cases have highlighted the potential problems. One article was revealed as falsely suggesting that a former assistant to US Senator Robert Kennedy may have been involved in his assassination. And podcasting pioneer Adam Curry has been accused of editing the entry on podcasting to remove references to competitors' work. Curry says he merely thought he was making the entry more accurate.

However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature — the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science — suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.

The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.

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[IronLionZion]

1. The ability to fuck with it, is the reason it is so accurate

Since anyone can edit wikipedia, if some asshole puts an incorrect entry, someone will catch it and correct it. Popular articles get corrected faster because more people are reading it.

This is dependent on the fact that vast majority of people are honest, and very few people have the desire to spread false information as fact.

Clearly, I support wikipedia. And to the people who ask me how I know if the articles are always accurate, I respond that I don't. And I ask how do you know that every encyclopedia or news article is accurate? You don't! But traditional information sources have a few people editing them and checking facts. Wikipedia has thousands or even millions of people editing and checking facts around the clock!

[Ian David]

2. When I chaned "Olympus Mons" to "Pubis Mons" it was fixed within hours

Both times.

I still wonder if someone lost points on a sixth grade science report somewhere.

[progdonkey]

3. I think it depends on the type of entry...

Entries about people or inventions (such as the two examples in the excerpt) are much more liable to have errors go un-noticed (or are actually lies meant to libel or distort). While there is a huge population of experts who could catch a physics mistake on even a quick read-through, there may be only a few people who might notice an error in someone's biography, without its being a completely glaring mistake.

More people would notice a mis-statement of Newton's Third Law than how many children some Attorney General has, for instance.