Which sites are worth a few bucks?

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

I've found wikipedia to be too unreliable and too easy for people to modify with faulty info, and therefore can't support it. I have read various articles on the subject and did a quick search to find this one for now -

The study did reveal inaccuracies in eight of the nine entries and exposed major flaws in at least two of the nine Wikipedia articles. Overall, Wikipedia's accuracy rate was 80 percent compared with 95-96 percent accuracy within the other sources. This study does support the claim that Wikipedia is less reliable than other reference resources. Furthermore, the research found at least five unattributed direct quotations and verbatim text from other sources with no citations.


I had a friend who attempted to demonstrate this once and went to a wikipedia article on the speed of light. He modified the speed of light from 186,000 miles per second to 186,000 miles per hour. He checked it regularly over the next few days and it stayed that way for well over a week.

Yes, that is how Wikipedia works. No one should expect it to be perfectly accurate all of the time. A week sounds reasonable (though many studies claim mere hours, something as easy to miss as a one word change would get lost for a while, I'd bet.)

Wikipedia is a resource like any other. One of the first things they teach you in any research related class (and then repeatedly go over and over) is that all resources are varyingly reliable. I know where wikipedia stands on reliability. There are lots of tools there to dig further if you want to be sure of where the info comes from.

We can quote studies and articles forever on this (shall I provide a link?) but here's one of my favorites.

Library Journal's reviewers look at Wikipedia. Great article. LJ is among the most respected librarian review periodicals.

While there are still reasons to proceed with caution when using a resource that takes pride in limited professional management, many encouraging signs suggest that (at least for now) Wikipedia may be granted the librarian’s seal of approval.