The Wikipedia Revolution

[eilute]

If the online encyclopedia is not already the biggest non-search engine site on the Internet, it likely will be. Currently Wikipedia has over one million articles, is adding 1,700 articles each day, and is doubling in size once every ten months. In comparison, Encylopedia Britanica has 120,000 articles and boosts only 25% improvement in accuracy over Wikipedia.

No. Wikipedia is not in the news. However, it is my belief that Wikipedia is (or will be) among the largest WWW juggernauts, and that this is newsworthy.

 

[TraumaRN]

Wikipedia is teh sexor......:thumbsup:

I use it all the dang time, especially for the beginnings of basic research. I cant wait til it's pharmaceutial sections are more filled out

 

[Forsythe]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Wikipedia is teh sexor......:thumbsup:

I use it all the dang time, especially for the beginnings of basic research. I cant wait til it's pharmaceutial sections are more filled out

Yes it rules.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

I love the Wikipedia. It rocks!

 

[Polish3d]

25% less accurate is actually a fair amount depending on what they mean by that.

Consider if that means 1 out of every 4 articles is wholly false

 

[compuwiz1]

The exponential growth potential there is astounding, based on what it's already doing. This is gonna be huge. Somebody is gonna sell it for a kazillion dollars soon too....watch.

 

[Colt45]

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
The exponential growth potential there is astounding, based on what it's already doing. This is gonna be huge. Somebody is gonna sell it for a kazillion dollars soon too....watch.

eh? how do you sell a non-profit organization? it runs off donations.

 

[Velk]

Originally posted by: Frackal
25% less accurate is actually a fair amount depending on what they mean by that.

Consider if that means 1 out of every 4 articles is wholly false

If you assume encyclopaedia brittanica is infallible and has 100% accuracy 8)

It's probably more likely that it means it has 25% more factual errors.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: eilute
If the online encyclopedia is not already the biggest non-search engine site on the Internet, it likely will be. Currently Wikipedia has over one million articles, is adding 1,700 articles each day, and is doubling in size once every ten months. In comparison, Encylopedia Britanica has 120,000 articles and boosts only 25% improvement in accuracy over Wikipedia.

No. Wikipedia is not in the news. However, it is my belief that Wikipedia is (or will be) among the largest WWW juggernauts, and that this is newsworthy.

Can I ask what source provided the 25% number, and upon what criteria it was based?

 

[compuwiz1]

Originally posted by: Colt45

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
The exponential growth potential there is astounding, based on what it's already doing. This is gonna be huge. Somebody is gonna sell it for a kazillion dollars soon too....watch.

eh? how do you sell a non-profit organization? it runs off donations.

Because in the end it won't be run off of just donations, especially if it gets sold off to a visionary who sees how to make a profit from it. Ads, subscriptions, sponsorships...lots of ways.

 

[techs]

About 3 months ago I put Wiki in Favorites. Second from the top.

 

[Lemon law]

 

[Lemon law]

Maybe I don't quite understand, but the question is who vettes the facts put into wiki? Suppose for sake of arguements someone writes a wiki article that the moon is made of green cheese or some other rot.
At what point do you say this goes beyond creative writing into the relm of opinion. Our understanding of things increase everyday, old medical dogma is being discarded on almost a daily basis. Because the concenus expert opinion may be one thing to day, and another thing tomorrow.

Just seems to me that wiki would be more vulnerable than others on that point.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: compuwiz1

Originally posted by: Colt45

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
The exponential growth potential there is astounding, based on what it's already doing. This is gonna be huge. Somebody is gonna sell it for a kazillion dollars soon too....watch.

eh? how do you sell a non-profit organization? it runs off donations.

Because in the end it won't be run off of just donations, especially if it gets sold off to a visionary who sees how to make a profit from it. Ads, subscriptions, sponsorships...lots of ways.

The founder of Wiki will never have to work again and it is another nail in the coffin for older business Models like the RIAA.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands

Originally posted by: eilute
If the online encyclopedia is not already the biggest non-search engine site on the Internet, it likely will be. Currently Wikipedia has over one million articles, is adding 1,700 articles each day, and is doubling in size once every ten months. In comparison, Encylopedia Britanica has 120,000 articles and boosts only 25% improvement in accuracy over Wikipedia.

No. Wikipedia is not in the news. However, it is my belief that Wikipedia is (or will be) among the largest WWW juggernauts, and that this is newsworthy.

Can I ask what source provided the 25% number, and upon what criteria it was based?

They pulled random topics and compared the entries in wikipedia and Britanica and count the number of factual errors. They also found that wikipedias entries are longer then britanica so the more errors is to be expected.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: compuwiz1

Originally posted by: Colt45

Originally posted by: compuwiz1
The exponential growth potential there is astounding, based on what it's already doing. This is gonna be huge. Somebody is gonna sell it for a kazillion dollars soon too....watch.

eh? how do you sell a non-profit organization? it runs off donations.

Because in the end it won't be run off of just donations, especially if it gets sold off to a visionary who sees how to make a profit from it. Ads, subscriptions, sponsorships...lots of ways.

You can't really sell it because all the content can be downloaded and mirrored. Heck if you wanted you could create your own version and put ads on it right now. So all you could really buy is the name but the with the idea of wikipedia every article would end up just getting linked to whom ever creates the new non-profit version.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Can I ask what source provided the 25% number, and upon what criteria it was based?

This study was plastered all over every news page in Dec.
"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."

3.86/2.92 = 1.32
(32% more errors per article.)

 

[PrinceofWands]

Originally posted by: dullard

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands
Can I ask what source provided the 25% number, and upon what criteria it was based?

This study was plastered all over every news page in Dec.
"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."

3.86/2.92 = 1.32
(32% more errors per article.)

Awesome, thanks for the link.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Maybe I don't quite understand, but the question is who vettes the facts put into wiki? Suppose for sake of arguements someone writes a wiki article that the moon is made of green cheese or some other rot.
At what point do you say this goes beyond creative writing into the relm of opinion. Our understanding of things increase everyday, old medical dogma is being discarded on almost a daily basis. Because the concenus expert opinion may be one thing to day, and another thing tomorrow.

Just seems to me that wiki would be more vulnerable than others on that point.

You have people who watch the article. You have mderators. Something like you mention is considered and treated like vandalism. You only need a few people for a subject who actually care about it to keep things in line.

 

[firewall]

Wikipedia is good so long as it's not a political article......

 

[eilute]

Originally posted by: Frackal
25% less accurate is actually a fair amount depending on what they mean by that.

Consider if that means 1 out of every 4 articles is wholly false

I think what this means is that you might have an article about New Orleans, and the article uses the term "R&B" where it should have used the term "Motown" instead. I'm just guessing though.

 

[eilute]

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands

Originally posted by: eilute
If the online encyclopedia is not already the biggest non-search engine site on the Internet, it likely will be. Currently Wikipedia has over one million articles, is adding 1,700 articles each day, and is doubling in size once every ten months. In comparison, Encylopedia Britanica has 120,000 articles and boosts only 25% improvement in accuracy over Wikipedia.

No. Wikipedia is not in the news. However, it is my belief that Wikipedia is (or will be) among the largest WWW juggernauts, and that this is newsworthy.

Can I ask what source provided the 25% number, and upon what criteria it was based?

I read that Wikipedia has on average four errors per article, while Britannica has three. So

100% = 1.00
1.00 - 3/4 = 0.25
0.25 = 25%

I can't remember where I read this. Here is a semi relevant link regarding the comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica Article

 

[FelixDeCat]

I dont trust Wikipedia or Snopes.

 

[Amplifier]

Originally posted by: Frackal
25% less accurate is actually a fair amount depending on what they mean by that.

Consider if that means 1 out of every 4 articles is wholly false

Almost meaningless number by itself as you implied. Is it 98.66% to 99%? Who knows the criteria for accuracy, especially in different subject areas.

But yeah wiki is an awesome site.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: eilute

Originally posted by: PrinceofWands

Originally posted by: eilute
If the online encyclopedia is not already the biggest non-search engine site on the Internet, it likely will be. Currently Wikipedia has over one million articles, is adding 1,700 articles each day, and is doubling in size once every ten months. In comparison, Encylopedia Britanica has 120,000 articles and boosts only 25% improvement in accuracy over Wikipedia.

No. Wikipedia is not in the news. However, it is my belief that Wikipedia is (or will be) among the largest WWW juggernauts, and that this is newsworthy.

Can I ask what source provided the 25% number, and upon what criteria it was based?

I read that Wikipedia has on average four errors per article, while Britannica has three. So

100% = 1.00
1.00 - 3/4 = 0.25
0.25 = 25%

I can't remember where I read this. Here is a semi relevant link regarding the comparison of Wikipedia and Britannica Article

If that is the case, that still does not make 25%, unless the total number of 'facts' are the same.