Wikipedia-Sponsored Pilot Study Lauds Wikipedia Accuracy 125
netbuzz writes "The Wikimedia Foundation today is releasing the results of a 'pilot study' it commissioned last year to assess the accuracy and quality of Wikipedia in such a way that it would provide a methodology blueprint for others do more thorough reviews of online encyclopedias. The results are in, and despite ready acknowledgment of the small sample size and paragraphs worth of other caveats, the parents of Wikipedia can't help but note that its baby was judged to have outperformed other online encyclopedias, including Encyclopedia Britannica, in three different languages. Britannica, which disputed the Wikipedia-friendly results of a much-cited Fortune comparison report back in 2005, has yet to offer a reply to this one."
Re:Oil industry report says oil industry great (Score:4, Insightful)
That doesn't matter. The fact is that if someone approached me and paid a wad of cash for doing something, unless there were some really weird circumstances at work, I'd probably do my best to please them--or at least, to not piss them off--even if they paid me up front and there were "no strings attached." Plus, if you're the company performing this study, you'd have to consider the possibility that the Wikimedia Foundation might want more studies done in the future, if the results you come up with are beneficial to them.
I've seen this in politics and in corporate studies as well. If at first you don't get a result you agree with, kill the messenger and find someone else to do another study that gives you more favorable results. Bury the first ones and hype the one you like.
While I'm sure there are some organizations and/or corporations who genuinely want completely impartial results, and there are likewise some companies that generate only completely impartial results, I honestly think that it's the exception, not the rule. Any study should be considered extremely suspect that is directly funded by a company or organization it could benefit.
This is interesting because... (Score:2, Insightful)
...Wikipedia is a hear-say site and this is established by their own policy that limits their liability. In other words: Wikipedia only allows what can be found already published. This was further exposed when through trickery an entry was made that did not yet have other published but upon wikipedia publishing the other made a reference to wikipedia and then the wikipedia article was edited to point to that article as a reference.... And it was found out and the article removed. I don't recall what article that was.
Re:Smoking is good for your health* (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, because wikipedia makes so much money off of everyone using all their bandwidth with no ads.
Re:Oil industry report says oil industry great (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'direct funding' is the key. If you want to have someone do impartial research, hire a third party to hire a researcher for you. That way, you don't know who the researcher is, and the researcher doesn't know who the customer is.
Re:Very variable. (Score:4, Insightful)
In an ideal world, if the "take my word for it" information is true, then it should get tested, verified, and published somewhere so that it can move into the "verifiable" information category.
Re:Very variable. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the theory is that it is OK, as long as there are people not in anyway connected or related to the author being able to continue the maintenance of the article. The problem with personal knowledge is that it gets lost as soon as the person loses interest in wikipedia or is run over by a bus (which in turn also causes a sudden loss of interest in maintaining wikipedia articles). That's the same reason original research is frowned upon - there should always be at least a second person being able to continue where the original author as left. And it helps if you can make yourself knowledgeable about the subject without being referred to Wikipedia articles, if you want to edit Wikipedia articles.
Re:Very variable. (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of it as the Bob Lazar [wikipedia.org] rule. You can't have people adding their weird theories based on unverified personal experience.
And, IMO people tend to over-value certain bits of information based on personal opinions founded at the time. You see this all the time on Slashdot where a poster tries to pull rank by saying stuff like "I was there, I worked at a computer shop in 1998!". They then proceed to get basic facts incorrect (common one: the order of Windows releases), or just parrot some conventional wisdom.
Re:In before... (Score:4, Insightful)
Much as I love wikipedia, a study of the _innaccuracy_ of it would be more enlightening, rather than a study of its accuracy! No one must forget, the fact that the majority of people contribute truthfully to it just makes the minority of people that dont respect it that much more believable... paradoxically, the more faith you have in wikipedia, the more likely that it is to be co-opted... get your head around that! :)
(that means, I love wikipedia, and I hate lying scumbags, in case you happen to be a lying scumbag and also reading this...)
you reuse words, i make my own words (Score:3, Insightful)
Dear sir, are you fucking serious?
In case you have not already been informed, jews were the last thing that you and your ilk blamed all of your problems on. As there are many fewer jews now and you evidently still have the same amount of problems, I would have to therefore assume that your problems are unrelated to jews or any other religious sect, and therefore self made, rather than caused by another party. I would further like to say that I would not use the same words as you to describe the motivations of even a savage crocodile, much less another human being.
In order to charitably appeal to your intellect, I will say perhaps the traits you are so desperate to ascribe to jews are in fact traits of all mankind, that it so dearly would like to hide, and that perhaps simply mankind itself is its own worst enemy, in the absence of any other. Only the likes of you could believe that everything would be completely fine if it werent for those 'pesky kids.'
In summary, go and choke on a dick you shit stirring pseudo intellectual prick, the words that spew from your mouth are a waste of fresh air that none alive wish to hear aside from your own pathetic self.