Wikipedia

I knew about Wikipedia being able to be edited by users. I am a "user" of Wikipedia, myself. However, I left my user status as it is since I do not find any good reason to stay and edit information on Wikipedia's pages. For many, Wikipedia is a reliable source of information. Every information there is considered trusted and fool-proof, which somewhat contradicts the reality. I trust most information in Wikipedia unless it is an information regarding my own country or an article with a "stub". Besides, there are many more places to gather information over the internet, and myLot is one of them.

I used Wikipedia today and I have always known that it can be edited. However, I have never tried it. But since it can be edited, I thought it is for specific people. If it open for the public to edit anything, then can one really trust the authenticity of the information provided there?

My husband and daughter like it, but really just because people "think" they know a topic, doesn't mean they really do or know how to write about it. If you take any college classes the first thing we learn is, "we are forbidden to use wiki" For example: what I think is the best way to prevent fleas on my pets, is not going to be "the way" and only a professional, whether a veterinarian or holistic practioner, should say absolutely what is best. Now I can say what "I think and believe is best" but as one without even a degree, anyone who listens to me should only do so out of what I have experienced, I am not trained in that area. Problem is, amateurs get on wiki claiming to know it all when just a minor mis-use of a word can cause problems for some who read the article.

Heyya yoyo! I hope you have been well! I learned about this when I started back to school a couple of years ago. It is forbidden to use Wikipedia as a reference for my papers or cited info. It is considered unreliable because of the fact that you or me or anyone else has the power to add or edit it. I think that there is some really good info on there but I also think that for something on there to be trusted that the references at the bottom of the page should be referred to as well. I have actually got info on there and followed the references and cited them in some of my papers. I think that people generally don't know about this though. I never would have. Great post!

I'm not a huge fan of Wikipedia. For the simple reason that its a 'user submitted' info site. Anyone can submit good and or bad information so unless that info I know is correct I will rarely use it if I wanted to post a link to something. Thankfully alot of nice people do decide to correct people on it though and edit it with good solid correct information. As for if I've ever submitted a page or that, yes I have. When I was part of a game mod we had a Wikipedia setup. Was fairly easy to run and maintain.

I love Wikipedia, I usually use it as a source of information particularly in school work.I know that anyone can edit a Wikipedia page but I never attempted to do so.

I use wikipedia often, and I know you can contribute and edit, but I have never done so. It is usually a more complete source of information than anything else. I like to read there and will often choose that as a first resource when searching.

Wikipedia is not always correct, as a writer many clients and sites I work for will not use wikipedia. Yes I did know you could edit.

Hi yoyo, Yes, I knew a Wikipedia page could be edited. No, I have never submitted a page to Wikipedia. Yes, I do use the site and I enjoy it. It's filled with info and easy to read. I find it an excellent source for information.

I do use Wikipedia and I have done some editing, especially where it says "citation needed". If I can find a citation, I add it. Once it's reviewed, they allow it to post (assuming it's accurate). That is one good thing - there's always a review of what's posted so there's not too much bad info there.

I don't use wikipedia at all. At my school they have banned us from using it because it is not a reliable source of inormation. Because exactly that reason. You can go on there and put information on there, but I don't know you. I don't know if you are a doctor of nuroscience and if you have a right to tell people how to step by step tell people exactly how to tell people how to do brain surgury all by themselves at home. There is no way of knowing if the information is crediable. So, it's better to check out pages that end in .edu or .gov because their reputation is on the line if the information is incorrect and they are more likely to be more crediable and researched.

Yes, I did know that anyone can edit a Wikipedia page. That is what Wiki means, it means that anyone can contribute content to the page or create whole pages themselves. That is all very good and fine, but because anyone can contribute, that means that you may get some information that is not correct. Most times the info will be correct, but not always as peoples opinions and bias can sway the way that a page may be written. I visit the site often, but do not use the information as my only source or information. The problem also is that many people are just copying Wikipedia information and pasting it straight into their own sites without even checking to see if the info is correct or not too. So, it is a good source for reference, but not perfect.

Late last year was my first experience creating a Wikipedia page. It is almost like learning how to do programming. I learned programming long time ago. Lots of tools do not seem to be user friendly for many people. They are not really that complicated and I don't use many, but I just need to be patient with just little bit of things. I have created about 4 to 5 pages so far. All of them are just for a friend of mine. My experience with all of them have been mixed. If I made some grammatical mistakes (thinking that I would get back to it later), a moderator/volunteer would delete it quickly without consideration. Also, if couple of my pages don't have sufficient sources or are deemed insignificant, I would get notice that they would be remove. My friend and I went through the pages. While I would prefer to take time, little by little editing the pages, the people/moderator/volunteers are so quick to point this and that. Then, someone was helpful to add sources to one of two pages. Wikipedia is a very useful resource. Most of the time, people would come across this when they do searches on internet about virtually anything. Still, like many comments here have pointed out, not all information are reliable since they can originate from anyone that spread false information. Any sources can also be found to be false. Like you pointed out here, anybody including Wikipedia volunteers/moderators can edit any page. They could be misguided by any false information that they know. I personally would not want to use it that much. I don't seem to like the tools and there are moderators/volunteers that can potentially judge this or that to any page like what I had experienced.

I use Wikipedia to read information only, i haven't tried to edit on it..but i know we can edit on Wikipedia. You are such a nice person when fixing errors on Wikipedia. You did a good job...

yes, i did know that and my daughter always tells me that Wikipedia is not the best place to get information due to the fact that anyone can put information on and its not known how reliable the information is. however, in light of her advice, i often use Wikipedia when i am doing research (for my own interests.)

I use Wikipedia as my source of basic information but if you are looking for more in-depth information on one subject, it is better if you read a book than wikipedia. Most information you will get from wikipedia is user-written and most users does not have the right information on one subject or does not have enough information on one subject. As a science major, most wikipedia topics about science stuff seems lacking or wrong. Which is why I hardly use it. If you are researching about something, don't use wikipedia but if you are just curious on what is something all about, then use wikipedia.

hi yoyo, I've read somewhere that there are people who edited some wiki pages. Some of them use it to bully the person featured on the wiki article. I find Wikipedia very helpful in research and I think that wiki organizer monitors most of the pages in their site. I believe that you can report a page that is inaccurate. I still use it and I think it is one of the major source of information online.

I don't use Wikipedia at all. I have heard that anyone could put information in or edit it, as you said. I have also heard that because of that a lot of it is wrong.

Hi there Yoyo, I did not know about this until a colleague of mine share about this to me...and I was kind a disappointed. Like you, it is also my first source/reference and I did not know that those sources are made by people who doesn't really have that much evidences and even other sources about a certain stuff. Now, I don't know how it works and don't want to know since I don't want to edit anything. So...lesson learned for us. Not to make it our first source.

wow!really? i don't know about this. can you at least guide me how to?i wanted to try it.