How Accurate is Wikipedia?
Vanessa Hoo
Issue date: 2/1/06 Section: features
- Page 1 of 1
Versus Magazine Online [Image Edition]
Wikipedia has come under a flurry of scrutiny since the Seigenthaler incident, with many questioning the validity and accuracy of the popular reference site. However, not all of the response has been negative. The British science journal Nature facilitated a study that examined the comparative accuracy of scientific entries in Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica in December of 2005. Nature found the two sources to contain a similar amount of errors, with each having 4 serious errors relating to misinterpretations of important concepts in the pairs of articles reviewed. A considerable amount of minor errors were also found in Wikipedia and Britannica according to Nature: "Reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."
Despite the Nature study lending credence to the validity of Wikipedia as a reference resource, Wikipedia decided to increase security measures by allowing only registered users to edit the entries. This measure would seemingly allow Wikipedia to track the profiles and names of those who edit the entries; however, Versus found that the registration process required only the creation of a user ID and password, without disclosing any personal information or an email address. Wikipedia has previously tracked the IP addresses of some contributors to the site and recently found that many officials in Congress were "polishing" the articles about themselves. Wikipedia stated that many of these changes were beneficial to the accuracy of the entries, but the case raises an ethical quandary about the neutrality of a source that has a vested interest in the content of the entry. IP tracking was also used to discover the identity of Brian Chase, a Nashville resident, who created the malicious entry about Seigenthaler.
Wikipedia has revolutionized the way many people research on the internet since its inception by serving as a free, centralized portal for factual information. Many college students use the site on a regular basis to find a quick fact or to do research for a paper, but students should ask their professor before using Wikipedia as a source for papers. Versus found that the policy on the use of Wikipedia differed widely between professors, so the best advice for students is to stay on the safe side and ask, or that ten-page paper may be returned as incomplete due to using "disreputable sources."