Wikipedia Query (w/poll)

Fellow Kossacks, you could do me a quick favor here. I've been thinking lately about what I called, in a post at another blog,

a new "digital divide" I sense arising. (The first and still pre-eminent one, of course, is economic--the haves online, the have-nots cut out). The one I will be commenting on is more along generational and net-savviness lines, with many folks I know shying away, for a variety of reasons, from a lot of the interactive developments collectively called "Web 2.0".

Of all the facets of Web 2.0 (including the debate over whether or not there is such a thing), far and away the best known and most widely used is Wikipedia. I've not figured out how to frame an easy-to-click multiple choice poll with two or more initial states, so I'll ask your indulgence here, and if you have anything to add on your personal use of (relationship to?) Wikipedia, I'd appreciate your throwing in a comment below.

•  I turn to you, friends, because

  this is far and away the largest pool of net-savvy people I am connected to.

  by lao hong han on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 04:43:24 AM PDT

•  Wiki is good for anything

  Internet or entertainment related.  Anything else, don't bother.  If you want to look up Evolution of Dance go for it.  If you want to look up the Tudor, be careful.  Many people fancy themselves historians lately.

  by Lava20 on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 04:51:59 AM PDT

  •  Its science is pretty good, also.

    by Wee Mama on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:09:45 AM PDT

•  A librarian's perspective...

  (just a note from a 60 year old librarian about the Web 2.0 phenomenon and Wikipedia)Some of us are savvier than you think about what has come down the pike and what is coming after - but information, information retrieval and information dissemination is our business. I see the phenomenon from a somewhat different perspective, however, which means I spend a whole lot of time wondering how we are going to get future generations to weigh the credibility of the vast amount of information they are receiving.

  by meerkoet on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 04:56:55 AM PDT

  •  Yaaay for librarians!!

    Youse guys are heroes of mine, partly because I grew up  a bookish kid in a small town, partly because you have been consistent defenders of our Constitutional rights for decades now.

    The question of weighing information is an important one. My question is, isn't this problem pushed more to the fore by the tidal wave of information available? I mean that if you looked something up in the Britannica (or the World Book), it was with the background assumption that it was authoritative. Now I have a certain skepticism about everything, possibly the product of age and experience.

    by lao hong han on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:11:24 AM PDT

    •  Yes

      Thanks for the commendation, lao hong han! And, I agree with you completely about the question of credibility being "pushed more to the fore" these days. I'd also like to add that these are exciting times for those of us who previously had no access to archives and repositories.

      by meerkoet on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:47:34 AM PDT

•  I don't know how typical this is, but

  I don't go to Wikipedia directly when I'm looking things up.  I google my topic and if there's a Wikipedia entry, I'm likely to check that first.  Like Lava20, I find it more useful for some subjects than others.  I do a lot of stuff where I need to look up wildlife and natural history info, and they seem to be pretty good in that regard.

  by lineatus on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 04:56:55 AM PDT

•  What exactly are you asking?

  It is not clear what you are looking for. Wiki is the big one, but there are also sub-wikis, and these are knowledge base repositories. Like YouTube, in the beginning it was hard to see how these would be useful, but once you have millions of entries, everything changes.

  While there is some social network aspect to Wiki gardening, it's a secondary manifestation - normally, editors having a dispute. Sometimes the editors have to work together to protect an entry or defend against a corporation or government entity. These are tertiary social aspects.

  by The Raven on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 04:57:11 AM PDT

  •  Thanks, TR.

    Your point on scale (and comparison with YouTube) is well taken.

    I am writing for an odd mix--some serious geeks and a buncha folks less web-savvy than the average Kossack. I chose to use Wikipedia as an entry point because it is the most familiar Web 2.0 manifestation. Other stuff like social networks and aggregators tend to have a much higher threshold of entry.

    by lao hong han on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:03:22 AM PDT

•  asdf

  I use it for topics in which I have no expertise.  For topics in which I actually know something I find that the Wikipedia content is often a joke.

  by BradMajors on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:03:46 AM PDT

  •  Is Wikipedia trustworthy?

    I seldom use Wikipedia unless it pops up when I Google, but it is my understanding that anyone can add 'facts' or information, what have you, on a subject.  Is it moderated or fact checked for accuracy?  While I know a lot about some things, I know less about many things and I wonder how many people contribute to Wikipedia that, like me, know less than I maybe should that are posting?

    by JFinNe on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:10:19 AM PDT

  •  How does that compute?

    If you know that Wikipedia is inaccurate on topics you already have knowledge about, why would you trust it on topics you aren't expert in? Presumably it is equally inaccurate on those, as well.

    by Catte Nappe on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:35:41 AM PDT

    •  Check the Sources

      I loves me some footnotes. And on Wikipedia they're clickable.

      by JG in MD on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:43:41 AM PDT

•  Web 2.0 ... Let's See

  I'll dive in. Since you only mentioned Wikipedia and didn't discuss the subject, I'm going to guess.

  1. Facebook. This one just confuses me. I suppose young people can use it, but it's too busy and complex. I couldn't even find my grandnephews on it. But I suppose it's a good example of Web 2.0.

  2. Databases. There's an Encyclopedia of Genealogy that users can add to. There are online trees that users can add notes to if they have a different name or date for a person.

  3. Online education. I don't know much about this one because I haven't taken any online classes. But there will be a "webinar" next Wednesday on how to use the new interface for Ancestry.com, so I suppose online discussions of a new product are common. The Q&A ought to be interesting; it's an awful search engine.

  4. Committees and documents. Interactive professional meetings and shared document editing.

  I'm sure there are a lot more.

  by JG in MD on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:12:13 AM PDT

•  i wonder what it says about FISA

  FISA-wrong vote, wrong time

  by bill123 on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 05:14:54 AM PDT

•  study found it almost as accurate as Britannica

  but B said Nature study was "fatally flawed."

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/...

  As a writer, I find it very helpful to help me research trivia and biographical info.

  by MmeVoltaire on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 06:22:25 AM PDT

•  O/T

  I don't have anything useful to add to what's already been said - just dropping in to say hey.  Good to see you lao hong ha.  Hope you are well my friend.

  Iraq Moratorium

  by One Pissed Off Liberal on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 06:50:03 AM PDT

•  Wikipedia: A good entry point

  to researching any topic, as long as you take it with a grain of salt and are aware that it may hold inaccuracies and biases.
  Otherwise it is full of resources, like quotations, references, links, images, maps, etc.
  As long as you know the limitations, it is a perfectly useful web.2 media.
  .
  .
  My grain of silicon.
  .
  .

  by Mangrove Blues on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 07:23:42 AM PDT

•  I think it way more then "useful"

  Wikipedia is groundbreaking!  No, I don't worship the site, and yes it has inaccuracies and bias!  However, inaccuracies and bias are a part of every encyclopedia.  Now read on...

  Wikipedia is a reference guide, an encyclopedia if you will.  It is important to note what limitations this genre of publication has inherent to itself.  Do not make it more than it is suppose to be.  Unlike a traditional reference guide it not concretely published.  Wikipedia is not meant to be complete, it is not meant to be static, it is not meant to be a bible.  OK, glad we cleared that up!

  The groundbreaking aspect of Wikipedia is that it is a part of something called a "community policed" site.  The community itself holds the wiki to a certain standard, and beleive me, the people that contribute care a great deal about that community and want to help it grow more accurate and more expansive and more credible.  It can be as good as the community that supports it works for it to be.  I think that is amazing.

  Couple more things:

  It is not proper to cite a traditional encyclopedia in academic research nor is it proper to cite wikipedia.  

  The site has developed many ways to limit what we would call "trolling" here on dKos.  There are going to be (agents of chaos - the joker from "The Dark Knight") in every community, but again it is self policing, by the contributers who work to make it better with every update!

  Think of the limitations with "Britanica".  There you have thousands of contributers.  Wikipedia, because it is public, has access to billions.

  by WattleBreakfast on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 07:55:05 AM PDT

  •  I agree. Plus which,

    try finding the full episode list for "It's About Time" in the Encyclopædia Britannica, I dare ya....

    by lao hong han on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 10:24:50 AM PDT

  •  Agreed that any encyclopedia has limitations.

    I grew up worshiping Britannica and the yearbooks, but with time I have come to realize that it has certain biases, tending toward conservatism.

    Nevertheless, it is very useful, and a great tool to get the young closer to books.  No one is suppossed to limit him/herself to an encyclopedia if searching for knowledge about a given subject matter, but rather, again, to take it as an entry point and as a compendium of the main and secondary points that compose a topic.

    If encyclopedias reflected all knowledge they would be like the map that one of Borges' characters was building, which was so accurate, even in terms of scale that .... imagine the rest.

    In terms of searchability and accessibility in the net maybe Wikipedia is far superior to Britannica.

    Great description above by WattleBreakfast.

    by Mangrove Blues on Wed Jul 23, 2008 at 08:44:27 PM PDT

•  Too late to comment but

  I couldn't help myself. Woke up this morning to wondering where this discussion headed and found that once again you guys clarified much for me. Thanks!

  by meerkoet on Thu Jul 24, 2008 at 04:49:39 AM PDT

  •  It's never too late to hear from a librarian!

    (Vide supra.)

    If you are still interested, meerkoet, a couple of smart people have made additional comments in the related post I put up at the considerably left-of-DKos blog I write for, Fire on the Mountain.

    by lao hong han on Fri Jul 25, 2008 at 04:08:10 AM PDT