Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Can Wikipedia be Trusted?

I've been a college student for 3 years now, and one thing I have always been told by my professors and/or instructors is that Wikipedia is not to be used as a resource for papers. The format was too unreliable. Is that still the case?

Some say yes, others say no. The debate is still ongoing, but some people, such as Virgil Griffith are working to make it reliable. I'm not too sure that's possible, but attention has been drawn to the way many companies will self-edit entries about themselves, deleting negative information and replacing it with complimentary information.

My thought is this: for general information, Wikipedia is probably ok. However, for serious research, or if you are trying to make an educated decision about a product or a company, check with a truly unbiased source, and check more than one source.

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