Wikipedia out of Controversy

Free online source Wikipedia has come out clean

from the controversy on its reliability. It has proved itself to be about

as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica. The British journal Nature

examined a range of scientific entries on both works of reference and

found few differences in accuracy.

In order

to test its reliability, Nature conducted a peer review of scientific

entries on Wikipedia and the well-established Encyclopedia Britannica. The

reviewers were asked to check for errors, but were not told about the

source of the information. “Only eight serious errors, such as

misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of

articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia,” reported Nature. “But

reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading

statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively.”

Wikipedia

was founded in 2001 and has since grown to more than 1.8 mn articles in

200 languages. Some 800,000 entries are in English. It is based on wikis,

open-source software that lets anyone fiddle with a web page. Anyone

reading a subject entry can disagree, edit, add, delete, or replace the

entry. It relies on 13,000 volunteer contributors, many of whom are

experts in a particular field, to edit previously submitted articles.

Wikipedia

founder Jimmy Wales welcomed the study. “We're hoping it will focus

people's attention on the overall level of our work, which is pretty

good,” he said. Nature said its reviewers found that Wikipedia entries

were often poorly structured and confused and need some good editing.

Wikipedia has responded to the criticisms by tightening up procedures.

Very soon, it plans to begin testing a new mechanism for reviewing the

accuracy of its articles.

Volunteers

who add entries and edit pages produce Wikipedia. However, it has been

criticized for the correctness of entries, most recently over the

biography of prominent US journalist John Seigenthaler. The founding

editorial director of USA Today attacked a Wikipedia entry that

incorrectly named him as a suspect in the assassinations of president John

F Kennedy and his brother, Robert.

-Source:



www.bbc.uk



Compiled by: Jasmine Kaur