Problems and Dangers Using Wikipedia Beware
Beware of the Dangers of Using Wikipedia as a Resource Site !
Problems and Pitfalls with Wikipedia
Most people are aware of Wikipedia, if you search on Google you certainly cannot miss it, if you have children then you’ll know it as the site they copy all their homework from !
What a lot of people still don’t realise is that; it is open to anybody to edit. Anyone reading this can go to wiki now and add anything they want to any of the pages or change anything on there.
It is not an online encyclopaedia
It is a site that has been built by the general public, the only qualification needed is: can you be bothered to build a page or add content.
They do have editors and dedicated users who look out for abuse but it is not a completely scholarly work
The reason I make the point is, last week once again saw another case of people using Wikipedia and taking what it said as gospel. Once again, it was journalists who came a cropper.
Several of the major British newspapers were preparing obituaries for Ronnie Hazlehurst, well known TV theme tune writer and musician.
Wikipedia credited him with having composed the 2000 smash hit by S Club 7 - Reach this was duly cited by several newspaper journalist both in print and on their newspaper websites.
It was a hoax !
It is sloppy and lazy journalism agreed, but it does show the need for care.
Another thing to note is Wiki do not copyright any of their material it is all open source so it can all be reproduced on other sites. Many people do this as it’s easy and free content, hence mistakes get duplicated over large numbers of sites once again giving credibility to falsehoods.
A while ago another journalist using Wikipedia as a source wrote something untrue about someone and was subsequently sued by that individual, the journalist had to pay, I believe, £40,000 in compensation !
So there you go, take what it says on Wikipedia with a pinch of salt. Take the time to find ‘proper’ websites on the subject you seek information on, they probably don’t rank as well in Google but are almost definitely superior.
If you have children using it, bear in mind everybody is copying and pasting the same stuff for their homework !
I also understand many teachers recommend using it, hopefully if any read this they might think again or at least give a caveat to their students
I’ll try and dig some more examples out and try to make this a definitive article.
If you know of any or indeed use the site yourself let us know.
Craig said,
October 13, 2007 @ 10:03 pm
With many government bodies (especially American), as well as many companies, either editing their own, or indeed paying others to edit, entries, it isn’t only the factual errors that are worrying, but that major companies etc have the resources to fund limitless spin, thereby creating entirely false perceptions?
Rod said,
October 14, 2007 @ 8:05 am
Craig
thanks for adding that extra dimension.
As you allude to, there have been a lot of cases recently where all sorts of dubious info has been added or changed.
The people who do it are pretty dumb as they leave their IP on record !
Consequently governments and big business have been outed.
Some topics are subject to so much abuse that they have been locked and can no longer be edited by the public
Regards
Rod