TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Wikpedia Becomes Internet Force, But Faces Crisis

Re: Wikpedia Becomes Internet Force, But Faces Crisis

Dave Garland (dave.garland@wizinfo.com)
Thu, 15 Dec 2005 15:54:04 -0600

It was a dark and stormy night when kludge@panix.com (Scott Dorsey)
wrote:

> I had no idea that Wikipedia had any credibility to question. Do
> people really take these things seriously? --scott

The journal Nature just released a study comparing it to
Britannica. The investigators peer-reviewed science articles from the
two sources:

The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but
among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not
particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained
around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three ...

Of a total of 42 comparison reviews:

Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important
concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from
each encyclopaedia. But reviewers also found many factual errors,
omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and
Britannica, respectively.

They don't say, but I expect the quality of writing was better, and
more consistent, in Britannica.

No mention of whether telephony was one of the subjects reviewed.

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html

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