Do you trust Wikipedia?

[JoeZhang]

I've written a few Wikipedia articles. Even this limited experience was enough to turn me off the whole process.

Like a lot of people, I use Wikipedia to satisfy my curiosity.

I wouldn't cite it as a source in any kind of scholarly debate, and I wouldn't allow my students to cite it. In fact, I tell my first-year students that encyclopedias and websites of any kind are not acceptable sources for their research papers, as a way of forcing them to drag their lazy asses down to the library.

True story: one of my fellow professors had a student who plagiarized Wikipedia for his research paper--and then tried to get rid of the evidence of his plagiarism by editing the article.

My colleague found him out, of course, and gave him the zero he deserved. The student then went onto facebook and ranted about what an asshole my colleague was. My colleague's wife then brought this rant (and its author) to his attention

Do students think their professors have never heard of the internet, or something? We have, you know. Most of us, anyway.

Comedy gold right there. People have no work ethic or sense of pride anymore.

Anymore? people have *always* cheated, the net just made it easier. When I was still a prof, I had all sorts:

* The student who claimed that his paper wasn't plagiarism because he paid someone else to write it and he couldn't know the guy would sell the same paper more than once.

* A student who copied something directly out of my own papers

* A student who's assignment concluded with "more detail about this can be found on pg. 256"

* A student who forward me an e-mail with his "assignment" attached and at the bottom of the forward was the original email from a friend of his saying "this old assignment of mine should fit the topic".

Teaching is amazing for demonstrating how fucking dumb many clever people are...

 

[RoJoHen]

I've written a few Wikipedia articles. Even this limited experience was enough to turn me off the whole process.

Like a lot of people, I use Wikipedia to satisfy my curiosity.

I wouldn't cite it as a source in any kind of scholarly debate, and I wouldn't allow my students to cite it. In fact, I tell my first-year students that encyclopedias and websites of any kind are not acceptable sources for their research papers, as a way of forcing them to drag their lazy asses down to the library.

True story: one of my fellow professors had a student who plagiarized Wikipedia for his research paper--and then tried to get rid of the evidence of his plagiarism by editing the article.

My colleague found him out, of course, and gave him the zero he deserved. The student then went onto facebook and ranted about what an asshole my colleague was. My colleague's wife then brought this rant (and its author) to his attention

Do students think their professors have never heard of the internet, or something? We have, you know. Most of us, anyway.

1) He gave him a zero for plagiarism? In my school, if you got caught plagiarizing, you automatically failed the class and were put on academic probation! Just ask my old roommate!

2) By my senior year at college, most of the staff not only knew about facebook, but were members!

 

[nx1701g]

I'll admit that I don't generally trust Wikipedia; however, I was shocked to read that some universities are starting to accept it as a scholarly resource. I was reading in a text book for a class recently and it cites Wikipedia as a source.

Eh? can you link to somewhere? I've never encountered such a thing. It might used as a resource discussing the use of wikipedia but otherwise...

If you tried to use in a proper peer reviewed paper, you might as well scrawl "I stink of piss" across the top.

I didn't read it online. It was in a text book (published in 2007). It's cited in a book on MLA Format, APA Format, a Psychology Book, and a book on E Business Management.

 

[Goliath]

Anymore? people have *always* cheated, the net just made it easier. When I was still a prof, I had all sorts:

* The student who claimed that his paper wasn't plagiarism because he paid someone else to write it and he couldn't know the guy would sell the same paper more than once.

* A student who copied something directly out of my own papers

* A student who's assignment concluded with "more detail about this can be found on pg. 256"

* A student who forward me an e-mail with his "assignment" attached and at the bottom of the forward was the original email from a friend of his saying "this old assignment of mine should fit the topic".

Teaching is amazing for demonstrating how fucking dumb many clever people are...

It's true. 'Twas ever thus.

 

[John Picard]

I've written a few Wikipedia articles. Even this limited experience was enough to turn me off the whole process.

Like a lot of people, I use Wikipedia to satisfy my curiosity.

I wouldn't cite it as a source in any kind of scholarly debate, and I wouldn't allow my students to cite it. In fact, I tell my first-year students that encyclopedias and websites of any kind are not acceptable sources for their research papers, as a way of forcing them to drag their lazy asses down to the library.

True story: one of my fellow professors had a student who plagiarized Wikipedia for his research paper--and then tried to get rid of the evidence of his plagiarism by editing the article.

My colleague found him out, of course, and gave him the zero he deserved. The student then went onto facebook and ranted about what an asshole my colleague was. My colleague's wife then brought this rant (and its author) to his attention

Do students think their professors have never heard of the internet, or something? We have, you know. Most of us, anyway.

Comedy gold right there. People have no work ethic or sense of pride anymore.

Anymore? people have *always* cheated, the net just made it easier. When I was still a prof, I had all sorts:

* The student who claimed that his paper wasn't plagiarism because he paid someone else to write it and he couldn't know the guy would sell the same paper more than once.

* A student who copied something directly out of my own papers

* A student who's assignment concluded with "more detail about this can be found on pg. 256"

* A student who forward me an e-mail with his "assignment" attached and at the bottom of the forward was the original email from a friend of his saying "this old assignment of mine should fit the topic".

Teaching is amazing for demonstrating how fucking dumb many clever people are...

True. I stand corrected.

Back in high school, our English teachers would chew you a new asshole and issue an "F" and make you rewrite a book report if they caught you using Cliff's Notes. Then, you STILL received an "F" for the assignment. And yes, they knew well enough from the written report whether or not Cliff's Notes was used.

Moral of the story is that cheaters are stupid.

 

[JoeZhang]

I'll admit that I don't generally trust Wikipedia; however, I was shocked to read that some universities are starting to accept it as a scholarly resource. I was reading in a text book for a class recently and it cites Wikipedia as a source.

Eh? can you link to somewhere? I've never encountered such a thing. It might used as a resource discussing the use of wikipedia but otherwise...

If you tried to use in a proper peer reviewed paper, you might as well scrawl "I stink of piss" across the top.

I didn't read it online. It was in a text book (published in 2007). It's cited in a book on MLA Format, APA Format, a Psychology Book, and a book on E Business Management.

If they are set texts, I'd rip out the page, throw it at the prof and say "what the fuck is this? Am I at clown college?"

 

[Aragorn]

In high school, I forgot what class it was, there was one guy sitting behind me who for whatever reason wanted to cheat off me for this one multiple choice test. So I'd lift up my paper as if to ponder the question, and he'd copy what I put down.

Then I would change my answers.

 

[stj]

In my opinion, it is unreliable for any controversial topic, which includes living persons, extant commercial concerns, ancient ideological disputes, and all questions requiring profound expertise. It is also pretty limited.

What I don't understand is how it always takes up 90% of the entries in the first five pages from a Google search?

 

[suarezguy]

Actually Wikipedia is a pretty good general reference for less controversial and more esoteric subjects, particularly in the sciences.

Well if it's made understandable than it's not good, or at least not serious and respectable.

Sure I mostly trust it, for entertainment products and political info, I know better than to use it in any paper, because the point is that it's not-professional, anonymous in fact. But I think it is fun and fairly informative, I'm sort of a negative person and it's "fun" to read and think about how conservative some politicians have been, as well as to easily get pretty objective information about how effective or not policies have been. For instance, it explains that most of Reagan's tax cuts didn't increase revenues. Just yesterday I used it to link to some Orson Scott Card essays, which were pretty extreme but also showed some unique thought processes. You can also find out, in well-written summaries, what happened in long-running TV shows without having to watch them, or look at synopses and analysis of plays and think back about when you read them, and gain some new perspectives.

 

[The Wormhole]

Yes, I trust Wikipedia. With my life.

 

[ToddPence]

Some people say the internet has made plagerism easier. Actually, it's made catching plagerists easier.

 

[ancientone51]

So, can I print this thread out, give credit to a bunch of strangely named people and use it to show my students that you don't use Wikki as a primary/solo source?

I agree with what has been stated, good jumping off point if you get a topic you are clueless about and your esearch from there.

 

[stoneroses]

Working in journalism I do use it for basic things, however I would never trust it as the only source as some have before and fallen foul of pages that have been changed as somebodies idea of a joke. Read Private Eye magazine for details.

 

[Astraea]

I've written a few Wikipedia articles. Even this limited experience was enough to turn me off the whole process.

Like a lot of people, I use Wikipedia to satisfy my curiosity.

I wouldn't cite it as a source in any kind of scholarly debate, and I wouldn't allow my students to cite it. In fact, I tell my first-year students that encyclopedias and websites of any kind are not acceptable sources for their research papers, as a way of forcing them to drag their lazy asses down to the library.

True story: one of my fellow professors had a student who plagiarized Wikipedia for his research paper--and then tried to get rid of the evidence of his plagiarism by editing the article.

My colleague found him out, of course, and gave him the zero he deserved. The student then went onto facebook and ranted about what an asshole my colleague was. My colleague's wife then brought this rant (and its author) to his attention

Do students think their professors have never heard of the internet, or something? We have, you know. Most of us, anyway.

Comedy gold right there. People have no work ethic or sense of pride anymore.

Not plagiarism-related, but other true stories involving Internet and dumb students:

-The people who made a Facebook group entitled "Dr. X is better than Ambien" and used an unflattering caricature of Dr. X as group picture when Dr. X had access to the group.

-The person who wrote an e-mail to the rest of their class bitching about what an ass the professor was and how unfair the exam had been, except that he used the class e-mail system and therefore sent the e-mail not only to all of his fellow classmates, but to ALL of our professors. We heard that most of them were mightily amused, except the professor who'd been called an ass.

One of our professors that I can think of is on Facebook and actually has a profile/is friended to many students. So people really ought to be aware. (And, in case you were wondering, I can say "our professors" because I'm in a pharmacy program and we all share the same classes/professors. This is also how incident #2 worked.)

Now, back to topic:

I'd never cite Wikipedia for a formal paper, but I trust it enough if I need background information for my own knowledge for a class, particularly if it backs up my notes (one of my majors for undergrad was cell and molecular bio, and usually people can't be bothered to muck around with falsifying articles on things like families of signal transduction proteins.) I think the technical articles are probably less prone to falsification because there's less personal opinion involved. No one really has an agenda

Also, I haven't been above using the (credible) sources Wikipedia cites as sources for research for non-science-y things - it was a great jumping-off point to start research on a recent health care finance project. On the flip side of things, I also like it for quick reference on pop culture subjects. For something like Star Trek, I don't find it as useful as Memory Alpha/Memory Beta, but for more generalized things, it's good.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Why should I trust a site that anyone can edit?

I mean, true, they may have a cadre of 'editors' that will reverse any edits that are obvious vandalism, but in the end, how can we consider it valid? If you had to submit your edit to the 'bosses' before it shows up on the page, then yes, I'd trust it. But there isn't that kind of authority there.

 

[Goliath]

If you had to submit your edit to the 'bosses' before it shows up on the page, then yes, I'd trust it. But there isn't that kind of authority there.

To be fair, the presence of 'bosses' isn't always a guarantee of quality. I've had an academic article submission rejected by an editor for purely ideological reasons.

 

[JoeZhang]

Working in journalism I do use it for basic things, however I would never trust it as the only source as some have before and fallen foul of pages that have been changed as somebodies idea of a joke. Read Private Eye magazine for details.

like when the Times put in the ob of a composer that he has been spending his last years knocking out hits for S Club 7

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/wikipedia_obituary_cut_and_paste/print.html

 

[Hermiod]

^That's why I check the history of anything that looks odd.

 

[Roshi]

Yes, I trust Wikipedia. With my life.

*Goes to wiki and prepares an entry about how consistant it is to have a zero before digits on primary hulls..

 

[stoneroses]

Working in journalism I do use it for basic things, however I would never trust it as the only source as some have before and fallen foul of pages that have been changed as somebodies idea of a joke. Read Private Eye magazine for details.

like when the Times put in the ob of a composer that he has been spending his last years knocking out hits for S Club 7

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/wikipedia_obituary_cut_and_paste/print.html

THat's right I remember that one. There was also one when one paper got a team mascot wrong for a football team.
A lot of that is due to the cut backs in the industry.