• Question: Is Wikipedia Correct?

    Asked by ThatGammaGamer to David, Gemma, Juhi, Matt, Stéphane, Yinka on 9 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: David Howard

      David Howard answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      Sometimes it is correct, sometimes it is wrong. Sometimes it is correct for a while, but then our knowledge changes and it doesn’t get updated. Don’t trust wikipedia!! Just use it to get a sense of the thing you are trying to find out.

    • Photo: Stéphane Berneau

      Stéphane Berneau answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      Not always because you can add stuff based on your knowledge.
      I think it is a good place to start and then, use the citations to confirm the informations.

    • Photo: Gemma Chandratillake

      Gemma Chandratillake answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      Sometimes! A good starting place to find things out but need to dig further to make sure what is stated is correct.

    • Photo: Matt Bawn

      Matt Bawn answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      I think as the others have said its good for a starting point to get a general idea of what the subject is and then to fill in the details from other sources.

      But interestingly what is “correct” changes over time:
      http://qi.com/research-half-life-of-facts

      “Some medical schools teach students that, within a few years, half of what they’ve been taught will be wrong”

      So its always useful to check the sources even if its from a textbook for example.

    • Photo: Yinka Abejide

      Yinka Abejide answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      It depends! It’s seems to me that people have access to update it with wrong or right information if need be. So I would say don’t trust Wikipedia completely but try other resources and search engines to get the real meaning of what you may be looking for.
      I remember one of my teachers who gets uncomfortable when Wikipedia is cited in a document as the information can not be completely trusted.

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