I have been pondering the virtues and vices of the famous online user-directed Wikipedia. We have all heard that there are problems with accuracy (factual correctness) as well as its viability as a resource.
The peer-reviewed Journal Nature wrote a feature article on Wikipedia comparing its accuracy to that of Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica wrote a response discrediting the validity of the article.
Many of my colleagues and former professors refuse to accept Wikipedia as a viable academic source, putting it on par with prime-time television. They do, however, equally condemn many online resources that are not simply the electronic presence of another well-established source (like Britannica, Termium, JSTOR, etc).
I'll save my opinion on Wikipedia for a later post, but I think that an author on Slashdot summarized the overarching problem best:
In a response to
Wikipedia should really have a disclaimer at the top of every page warning and reminding users that there's a good chance that the page below may contain absolutely no facts whatsoever. That really would solve a lot of issues, and is honest.
one commenter said (emphasis mine)
It's a good idea, but why limit it to Wikipedia, it should just be built into the browser itself. For that matter the TV could print a such a warning when one changes the channel to Fox News. Seriously, part of being a 'responsible consumer of knowledge' from any source is knowing that the facts may be different than presented.
The moral of the sotry is: if you're learning something, play the lawyer and get it corroborated by another source.
