[WikiEN-l] Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?

[Carcharoth]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 10:47 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is about a very useful study that brought home to college
> students that wp is what it is, not what it isn't.
>
> http://www.insidehighered.com/advice/instant_mentor/weir22

Thanks, David. A very good article.

It resonates with what I've been saying (or at least thinking) for
some time, which is that Wikipedia is a starting point, no more than
that. Sometimes a very bad starting point, sometimes a very good one.
But a starting point, just like any other source (but more so than
some sources). Critical thinking and asking what is missing, and what
sources were used (or not used) by the author of what you are reading,
is the key lesson.

For so many Wikipedia articles, it is easy to do a bit of research and
find extra sources that aren't mentioned, either because those sources
were subsumed by the use of a newer source that built on the older
source, or because the editor elected to make the Wikipedia article
what it should be, which is an encyclopedic summary and starting point
for further reading. Wikipedia articles can't aspire to be a
definitive book or resource on a topic, but they can act as a useful
summary for those who only want a summary, and a starting point for
those who want to read and find out more.

As you read around a topic and get to know the sources, and how they
relate to each other, you get a real sense of how complete or balanced
the article is. The list of sources will invariably tell you how good
a Wikipedia article is in terms of how comprehensive it is. And
further reading sections can point the way for future expansions of
the article, or for the reader to go and find out more about the
topic.

Carcharoth