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