h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

hmmm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Wikipedia is a wiki but i dont think a wiki is Wikipedia

so Encyclopedia Dramatica is NOT Wikipedia i dont think...

Fanny/Effers/Flying Ants/I can't keep up.

If you want to look up plot points of films or books, I'd say that TV Tropes is a better resource than Wikipedia, and also far more entertaining.

TRiG.

There's a lot of websites riding on the 'wiki' brand name.
It's not a copywritten term. Serves 'em right for trying to outsmart
the h2g2Guide by eliminating the 'draconian peer review process'.
Hoist on their own Picard.


~jwf~

>>Hoist on their own Picard.



Earl Grey, hot.

It's a curate's egg - good in parts. The problem is knowing whether you're looking at a good part.

It's also very dull on a lot of issues, and the process of writing for it is rapidly becoming like some kind of wierd sect, with its own language (NPOV etc), hierarchy and customs.

sprout

It is the 'paedia you're talking about, sprout?

Everyone take a space backward

Look at the talk page. Look at the description of how many layers of hierarchy they have. Look at their jargon. Look at their internal politics.

I'm not saying the whole thing is going to turn into Waco, but from being significantly more open than Hootoo, I find it gets more introverted and hard to join in with, from day to day.

sprout

I have learn from Wiki that : OK, stuff on the internet isn't 100% reliable, but then, why should everything printed in books be correct and reliable information? (See above re Encyclopaedia Britannica).

Our Peer Review system probably produces more accurate facts, as entries are challenged and checked before they go online, but they do outdate so easily. (All that's been said earlier in this thread)

What I find Wiki good for is checking translations of things. For example, I needed to know the Russian for "rhubarb" recently (don't ask), so I called up the Wiki entry in English, clicked on the russki page and could show my Russian colleague want we meant, along with a a picture. It's also fun to compare, say, the German version of an entry with the English one on the same thing.

Ooh, I do the same, using Wiki for translations

On the whole, I find it very useful, especially for non-controversial stuff like info on music.

For anything remotely to do with politics or religion, you need to read the Talk page, and even then you need to be a bit wary. Perhaps treat it more as a starting point than the definitive answer.

I agree with Flunky that it's the Encylopedia Galactica to our Hitch-Hikers' Guide. The same thing had occured to me.

Gif

It's a great place to find lists of facts (which, of course, you should check elsewhere). That's not damning with faint praise - for that purpose, it really is very good. The Edited Guide here doesn't do that job half as well as Wikipedia, and rightly so: that isn't really what it's for.

For research Wikipedia is a useful resource but one should not take what is written there as the gospel truth always try and check the references.

In terms of article creation Wikipedia it allows a collaborative approach that is without time limit which is different to the way the edited guide here works - not saying the Wikipedia approach is better or worse, just different and thus tends to produce a different kind of article.

An example of a collaborative article I've worked on here at h2g2 is
A622568 George Formby - the Entertainer

An example of a collaborative article I've worked on over at Wikipedia is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_class_frigate Captain class frigate

You can see that they are very different in style.

For me, Wikipedia has one problem that is the biggest problem of all: you can go on there to find out about a commonplace medical condition and by the end of the first paragraph you already need a medical dictionary by your side.

Or, you find out about a commonplace medical condition, and by the time you've read some of the links you're convinced you have a related condition that hasn't been seen in your country since 1985.

Read about a medical condition, any medical condition - that's what you've got.

As a general reference site: very good.

As an encyclopedia: bad, bad, bad

There's been a few cases of journalists being pointed and laughed-at because they wrote articles containing nonsense as a result of using Wikipedia as a fact-based reference source. It's their own fault: it's not an encyclopedia that contains articles by experts on the subject, it's a website edited by everyone and which isn't just prone to jokers or cranks inserting false information but is also prone to consensus over fact. The two are not the same thing: consensus is what everyone agrees on based, usually, on who has the loudest voice; fact is what is demonstrably true.

I used to edit Wikipedia and don't any more. I first got annoyed with the site when I found entries on political subjects which were blatantly biased and often "watched" by specific editors trying to keep the bias in. Later, I found the site is riddled with stuff like this (usually on the more obscure subjects which are poorly policed), even the better articles are prone to the "consensus" problem I mentioned above. And that's before we get to the articles which are actually opinionated tracts...

If you want a quick reference on a subject (especially one which doesn't tread on ideological toes), look at Wikipedia; if you want to seriously study a subject, use a proper encyclopedia.

>For anything remotely to do with politics or religion, you need to read the Talk page, and even then you need to be a bit wary. Perhaps treat it more as a starting point than the definitive answer.

Exactly. The talk page is often an illuminating guide to how wiki-editors think. I once saw a discussion on a political subject where someone seriously touted the political compass website as a citation, as though that half-baked, simplistic quiz-site is some sort of serious, scholarly piece of political science. Unbe-blimmin-lievable.

>if you want to seriously study a subject, use a proper encyclopedia.< Zag

I have yet to use any sort of Encyclopedia for serious study. They are fairly basic general knowledge things, whether they be the old fashioned book things, or the new net thingies. I'd look up stuff in as a kid in things like Enc. Brit. or Wiki now as an adult; but purely for basic general knowledge, that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. I've never found such things useful either at school or university for essays or a thesis. wiki often has plenty of references, which *can* be useful for a starting point for more serious study. If I want to seriously study a subject, I read a variety of authors, because all authors inevitably have a bias, which you can only begin to work out by reading several authors who are expert in a particular field of research/study.

So no, personally I wouldn't use a proper encyclopedia for serious study. I don't even know what a 'proper encyclopedia' really is.