Wikipedia and Critical Thinking.

[devonin]

I was going to preface the start of my post with some number of the innumerable dismissals that get bandied about in CT each and every time someone references or quotes from wikipedia. However, I'm sure you can all remember plenty of them, so I'll save myself the time of finding them and save you the time of reading them.

I find such dismissals of the use of wikipedia insulting and ignorant, frankly. Yes, we are all aware that anybody can come and change the text of wikipedia. Yes we are all aware, in fact, that many people entertain themselves all day by doing just that. But this is where a little discernment on the part of both the users of wikipedia, and those who read threads where wikipedia is referenced.

First, some general statements about Wikipedia:

Encyclopedia Britannica in 2000, did a study of Wikipedia and concluded that on subjects for which EB had entries, the entries on Wikipedia for the same subjects were in most cases -equally- as accurate, and in most cases -more- complete.

Every Wikipedia page has an edit history showing you who edited, and what they edited, going back to the day the page was created, which is freely searchable and readable by users.

According to Wikipedia, entries on current events, and celebrities are the most vandalized, and entries on esoteric academic matters are the least vandalized. Conversely, esoteric academic entries have writers who pay the most and closest attention to edits, to revert them.

So what we get from all this, is that while yes, changes and vandalizing can and do happen, they chance is greatly reduced that a page on an academic subject will be vandalized, the chance is greatly increased that it will be reverted by the author quickly, and what is there is generally the even match, if not the superior to formal print encyclopaedia.

Where I'm going with this is this:

There is NO reason to dismiss somebody's evidence simply because that evidence comes from wikipedia.

This is an informal discussion forum on a game website, not a formal debate or defense of thesis, as such, the burden of evidence is greatly reduced. Even if someone is providing evidence from a print source, here in CT we don't demand bibliographical information, and page-specific citation, nor should we. We ask only that people point to some kind of corroborative evidence.

When people reference Wiki, you are free to go to the site yourself, view the exact text of the quote, view the exact bibliographical citation provided -for- the quote, and you can take that information to a library, look up the book, and directly see the text if you are so inclined.

This is true of all pieces of writing. If I cite a source in an essay, the only circumstance in which I should be required to produce that source directly to you is if you doubt the veracity of it, and were unable to find it yourself to check.

Wikipedia is held to fairly stringent standards of citation, and for discussion for the purposes of discussion, in a forum like this, it is a more than adaquate source.

So seriously folks...if you have an intrinsic problem with Wikipedia being used as a reference material, the onus is on -you- to track down the source being referenced, and prove that it is not a valid source. Simply quoting that someone used Wikipedia and spouting off some "Duur, Wiki isn't usable, my teacher told me so" answer really should not fly here.