thenorm wrote:Ingo..
Bottom line, it's OK to cite Wikipedia as long as you're aware that the information may be off...
Same for the Encyclopedia Britannica:
"Still, many critics have tried to downplay its (Wikipedia) role as a source of valid information and have often pointed to the Encyclopedia Britannica as an example of an accurate reference.
For its study, Nature chose articles from both sites in a wide range of topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review. The experts then compared the competing articles--one from each site on a given topic--side by side, but were not told which article came from which site. Nature got back 42 usable reviews from its field of experts.
In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts, in the articles. Of those, four came from each site. They did, however, discover a series of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements. All told, Wikipedia had 162 such problems, while Britannica had 123.
That averages out to 2.92 mistakes per article for Britannica and 3.86 for Wikipedia. "
Full article at:
http://news.cnet.com/Study-Wikipedia-as ... 97332.htmlMike