Comments on: Secrets and Paranoia at Wikipedia

By: Catalina Blaire

Catalina Blaire — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:00:40 +0000

http://www.life-hair.com/blog/masa/2009/11/post-70.html|3

By: Why I am Happy to be Not Important Enough — chrisg.org

Why I am Happy to be Not Important Enough — chrisg.org — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:16:01 +0000

[...] is a good thing. Don’t let the phrase “Wiki” fool you, allegedly Wikipedia is not as democratic and free as we would like because remember human beings are involved. In fact many people face a running [...]

By: Confluence: Department Information Retrieval and Scientific Services

Confluence: Department Information Retrieval and Scientific Services — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:32:55 +0000

Internal Discussion, WikiOnto…

Internal Discussion ad WikiOnto Various Links of Interest:…

By: Basel

Basel — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 19:21:51 +0000

Sorry for a late comment. I check my feeds once a month.
Anyways, Wikipedia is a starting point not an ending point. It’s just to sort out thoughts.
Anyone who uses it as a primary source of information is either lazy or clueless.

By: Pete Bollini

Pete Bollini — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 13:57:52 +0000

I don’t really adhere to the comspiracy theory even though I also believe that some people overreact to having a little power and behave like small tyrants. I don’t believe this to be the case since most of the content I have seen is excellent and well informed. A little normal caution in how we read the latter should be exerted, but that’s all. In general I find wikipedia extremely useful and I give thanks to all those contributing their time and brains to keeping it that way.

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 10:06:57 +0000

Do you find you link to them a lot Aaron? A few times I have linked the wiki people have criticized me for not trying hard enough to find someone else to link to.

By: Aaron Stroud

Aaron Stroud — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 19:50:31 +0000

I agree with Ahmed. When the topic isn’t controversial, I usually trust wikipedia to give me a quick overview. Although, I *always* try to find another source or two to confirm what I’ve read.

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:09:42 +0000

I take your (well made) point but in cases such as medical information I would be even more skeptical as the risk of being misled could be more detrimental?

By: Ahmed Bilal

Ahmed Bilal — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:53:51 +0000

forgot the link

By: Ahmed Bilal

Ahmed Bilal — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:40:02 +0000

I’m no fan of Wikipedia (see here why), and I’m pretty sure that the accusation of Wikipedia editors being paranoid has some merit.

However, 2 things come to mind:

1) You’ve assumed the editors to be guilty as charged from the start, and then taken a stance against them when the evidence is, to be fair, inconclusive (unless Durova has a history of paranoid delusions, but that’s a different story).

2) You’ll find that Wikipedia has gained this respect because they’ve they themselves have set high standards for themselves.

Yes, I trust Wikipedia, the same way as I would trust a blog or the newspaper – which is with a heavy dose of skepticism. In cases where opinions become involved or where someone has a stake in the outcome, then you start to trust Wikipedia less. When it’s just pure information (background info on a TV series, or basic medical information), then you can trust it more, because while you know that the people running it are not infallible, they are certainly hard-working and thorough in their research.