What Is So Bad About Wikipedia?

[option-shift-k]

We live in a day in age where things spread amazingly fast with the help of the web. A few years ago, wikipedia was not part of modern day society; however in recent years it has blossomed into a great open resource. I get a little ticked off because people always whine that wikipedia is all lies and is completely made up. The fact of the matter is, most of the loons who say this are computer illiterate and have never even used wikipedia. It is like when people say " you should sell that on ebay" and they have never once in their life bought or sold on the site. While I have to admit some things are inaccurate,( small celebrity bios, controversial topics E.T.C) for the most part it is great. The invalid things normally can be detected from a mile away. Well, that is just what I think. What do you think?

Edited January 26, 2008 by option-shift-k

[JSKY]

Removed the double post.

[JDoors]

I agree with your assessment. For non-controversial subjects it's my "go-to" source for detailed information (and links to information I wouldn't have thought of on my own). For controversial subjects, well, I ALREADY know what I think, why would I want to read what somebody else thinks?

And I believe "traditional" sources can be (and always have been) biased too, though some people are naive enough to believe as long as it's a traditional source it MUST be true. Things are turning around there though, people are getting wise to the pervasive bias in traditional sources (for which you can give at least some credit to the WWW). For example, I don't see the New York Times quoted as a source any more (except by OTHER traditional, and in my opinion similarly biased, sources).