The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia, Chronicle of Higher Education Options

[Newsfeed]

The ‘Undue Weight’ of Truth on Wikipedia

Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription)

By Timothy Messer-Kruse • For the past 10 years I've immersed myself in the details of one of the most famous events in American labor history, the Haymarket riot and trial of 1886. Along the way I've written two books and a couple of articles about the …

[Mister Die]

The fact that Wikipedia to begin with allows people whose way of obtaining "sources" is to search Google along with, if they want to appear more "academic," Google Books, demonstrates that any controversial subject is bound to be a nightmare once you get an editor or two who really don't like the content of the article or any recent changes to it and insist that Google-fu is more reliable than some weird old dirty books that they cannot or are unwilling to obtain.

[Emperor]

The fact that Wikipedia to begin with allows people whose way of obtaining "sources" is to search Google along with, if they want to appear more "academic," Google Books, demonstrates that any controversial subject is bound to be a nightmare once you get an editor or two who really don't like the content of the article or any recent changes to it and insist that Google-fu is more reliable than some weird old dirty books that they cannot or are unwilling to obtain.

Exactly. What kills me is when people use the term "research" to describe dinking around on the internet.

[SB_Johnny]

The fact that Wikipedia to begin with allows people whose way of obtaining "sources" is to search Google along with, if they want to appear more "academic," Google Books, demonstrates that any controversial subject is bound to be a nightmare once you get an editor or two who really don't like the content of the article or any recent changes to it and insist that Google-fu is more reliable than some weird old dirty books that they cannot or are unwilling to obtain.

Exactly. What kills me is when people use the term "research" to describe dinking around on the internet.

Over time, google will probably have a lot of older documents ("Public Domain" and all that) relating to all sorts of things. There's probably all sorts of documents out there that refer to homosexuality as a mental disorder, how eugenics is a great thing, the inferiority of Africans, etc. Presumably those are all reliable sources as well.

[Emperor]

The fact that Wikipedia to begin with allows people whose way of obtaining "sources" is to search Google along with, if they want to appear more "academic," Google Books, demonstrates that any controversial subject is bound to be a nightmare once you get an editor or two who really don't like the content of the article or any recent changes to it and insist that Google-fu is more reliable than some weird old dirty books that they cannot or are unwilling to obtain.

Exactly. What kills me is when people use the term "research" to describe dinking around on the internet.

Over time, google will probably have a lot of older documents ("Public Domain" and all that) relating to all sorts of things. There's probably all sorts of documents out there that refer to homosexuality as a mental disorder, how eugenics is a great thing, the inferiority of Africans, etc. Presumably those are all reliable sources as well.

Yes there were differences years ago but there are problems with the way people write today, and critical reading skills are as important as ever.

It was Wikipedia, after all, that felt it was necessary to tell readers that the Philadelphia region has lots of African Americans, high crime, and poverty all in one breath.

Anyway that's beside the point... most Wikipedians couldn't research themselves out of a paper bag and we all know that. If you're really defending Google-fu as a way of resolving important disagreements good luck with that.