Is Wikipedia currently credible?

[MWresearch]

It would be nice to use Wikipedia in research papers because its quality has increased a lot since it was first developed. However, because of its history of inconsistencies and letting anyone edit any article, I am not sure if it is accepted as a credible source of information by the scientific community.

[StringJunky]

Wikipedia's sound as long as you check that the listed references are good, which is what you should be citing really in a professional or serious academic scenario. It's ok on SFN generally; being an informal environment. It is a springboard to start searching from rather than a source itself imo. That's how quite a few here see it here I think, and I do too; for what that's worth.

Edited February 28, 2015 by StringJunky

[iNow]

It's very accurate, On the order of 97-98%, but it also is incomplete and further shouldn't be your primary source. Better to use it as a starting place and instead cite the references backing up each claim than to cite the dynamic ever-changing wiki page itself.

[MWresearch]

Ok, thanks.

[CharonY]

It is on the level of an encyclopedia, as such, it generally aggregates high level information. Virtually any proper scientific communication requires much more depth. If you think in terms of a term paper, then it can be a starting point to inform you on the general topic or assist with some definition. However if you find that your writing has no more depth (and you are, say in graduate school) you are likely not covering enough depth.

[ajb]

... I am not sure if it is accepted as a credible source of information by the scientific community.

Informally people use it, including myself. For basic mathematics definitions and simple examples it is pretty good.

 

The physics sections can also be good, but not always. My advice would be to follow up the references that give and/or cross-reference with other sources.

[Greg H.]

I wouldn't use it as a primary source for a proper scholarly article, or a graduate level research paper, but it's OK as a spring board to help you find related information, or as a way to provide discussion points on a topic.

 

A lot of its value to me is in finding primary sources that I may not be aware of, generally cited in the references for the wiki article. As long as you're doing your due diligence in validating sources it's not a bad place to get general information on a topic imo.

Edited February 28, 2015 by Greg H.

[Enthalpy]

Sometimes Wiki is botched, even intentionally, and isnt' corrected for months or years. This is uncommon but does happen. On the other hand, any encyclopaedia contains mistakes, any peer-reviewed journal as well, and Wiki belongs to the good ones. One nice feature of free editing is that, when an assertion is debated (example: minimum harmful radiation dose versus Linear-No-Threshold), generally someone lets it know on Wiki - while single-sourced websites and papers won't.

 

I'm a bit uneasy with the notion of "credible source". Readers should decide to believe a thesis, not an author nor a source.

 

Wiki isn't generally cited in academic papers as they prefer to cite other research papers, and a link to Wiki might be considered with little confidence there. But on a scientific forum, a link to Wiki is fantastic as it tells easily "this is what I'm speaking bout", and as an encyclopaedia, it uses to be an excellent introduction to a topic for non-specialists.

[studiot]

 

enthalpy

Readers should decide to believe a thesis, not an author nor a source.

 

+1

[ajb]

Wiki isn't generally cited in academic papers as they prefer to cite other research papers, and a link to Wiki might be considered with little confidence there.

Oddly, you do see 'crackpot' papers on viXra that cite Wiki.

 

The other source I have used, with varying levels helpfulness, is nLab. But this is quite specialist and sometimes not much help, but other times great help.

 

Mathworld (Wolfram) is also very helpful at times, as in planetmath.

Edited March 1, 2015 by ajb

[MWresearch]

Oh yeah, is Wolfram citable?

Or rather, is it formally citable?

[ajb]

Oh yeah, is Wolfram citable?

Or rather, is it formally citable?

 

Citing websites is not common. One problems is that they can change. I do however, think as time goes on citing websites will become more common; they could be seen as something akin to 'private discussion' and we do see references like that. They are meant to show the reader where the original idea came from.

 

Now mathworld has set itself up to be citable; at the bottom of each page is a 'cite this as'.

[robark]

Personally I treat Wikipedia only as a starting point. It gives a general overview, but not indepth information. I also noticed that some articles are not up-to-date, so that I can't trust it absolutely. And of course, if the source is edited by anyone without taking responsibility for that, this source can be trusted equally to an author book or an article.

[ajb]

Personally I treat Wikipedia only as a starting point.

Exactly and overall it is a good place to start.

[paul0808]

Exactly and overall it is a good place to start.

 

Yup. Though sometimes I found it provided some nice explanations for certain concepts. They did some kind of study a while back and found that the amount of errors between Wikipedia and established paid encyclopedias was not that different. I wouldn't use it ever as an official source in a paper though.