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+--- Thread: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. (/showthread.php?tid=127905)
Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - Wild eep - 11-30-2011
I often find myself, through searches, on Wikipedia. I find it very informative. I do realize the possibility of bad information. But all in all I feel it is a valuable site. A treasure so to speak.
In all this time of learning from this site, I never considered the cost it must take to maintain it. In my selfish ways and the attitude that all information on the net should be free, I never fully considered that they needed our financial help to survive.
Now here I am asking your opinions. Is Wikipedia the public broadcasting of the internet?
Is it one of the few untainted information sites left?
Here is a quote from their fundraising letter.
From Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales
Google might have close to a million servers. Yahoo has something like 13,000 staff. We have 679 servers and 95 staff.
Wikipedia is the #5 site on the web and serves 450 million different people every month – with billions of page views.
Commerce is fine. Advertising is not evil. But it doesn't belong here. Not in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is something special. It is like a library or a public park. It is like a temple for the mind. It is a place we can all go to think, to learn, to share our knowledge with others.
When I founded Wikipedia, I could have made it into a for-profit company with advertising banners, but I decided to do something different. We’ve worked hard over the years to keep it lean and tight. We fulfill our mission, and leave waste to others.
If everyone reading this donated $10, we would only have to fundraise for one day a year. But not everyone can or will donate. And that's fine. Each year just enough people decide to give.
This year, please consider making a donation of $10, $20, $30 or whatever you can to protect and sustain Wikipedia.
Thanks,
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia Founder wrote:
My opinion is that it is worth supporting.
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - Grace62 - 11-30-2011
Don't know if you saw this earlier thread, Wild Eep, but you're certainly not alone in thinking that wikipedia is a cause worth supporting. I don't personally donate there (I do support public radio and TV though) but I can see the value in doing so.
http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,1271823,1272118#msg-1272118
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - haikuman - 12-01-2011
Thank you for your post Wild eep . I use Wikipedia daily. I will be supporting them.
For me it is like having the worlds largest Library at my finger tips.
Thanks again for the post ... Do you have the donation link. . . ?
I grabbed the link here it is:
I wonder if OWC would match our donations. . . ? What say you Larry. . .?
https://donate.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserLandingPage?uselang=en&country=PH&template=Lp-layout-default&appeal-template=Appeal-template-default&appeal=Appeal-Brandon&form-template=Form-template-newwhitebox&form-countryspecific=Form-countryspecific-control&utm_medium=sitenotice&utm_source=B11_Donate_Brandon_AvsB_EN&utm_campaign=C11_1129_AvsB_EN
Rudie *(:>*
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - Zoidberg - 12-01-2011
I donated; I use it every day, and frequently. I'll donate again next month. Well worth the money.
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - Article Accelerator - 12-01-2011
Wild eep wrote:
I often find myself, through searches, on Wikipedia.
I rarely even bother with the search step anymore. I just look up the subject or product directly on wikipedia.org.
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - bwicklander - 12-01-2011
I donated a few weeks ago. I support Wikipedia every year. I find the information quite reliable, for the most part.
It is interesting that for college classes that I can't use wikipedia as a source, but college professors have no problem with me using someone's blog for the same information.
With the internet, there are few reliable sources anymore. Many publications have allowed blog style writing as journalism. Bleech!
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - freeradical - 12-01-2011
bwicklander wrote:
I donated a few weeks ago. I support Wikipedia every year. I find the information quite reliable, for the most part.
It is interesting that for college classes that I can't use wikipedia as a source, but college professors have no problem with me using someone's blog for the same information.
With the internet, there are few reliable sources anymore. Many publications have allowed blog style writing as journalism. Bleech!
There never were many reliable sources on the internet. I'm really surprised that you're allowed to use a blog as a source.
I would say that these are in general trustworthy sources.
- Stuff from the .gov or .mil domains
- Stuff from .edu domains, so long as it's not somebody's personal webspace at a school.
- Commercial sites where the site owner has something to lose (their reputation) if they get it wrong
Most everything else is unreliable, including Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is generally accurate. People do intentionally screw around with Wikipedia.
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - haikuman - 12-01-2011
"""Most everything else is unreliable, including Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is generally accurate. People do intentionally screw around with Wikipedia."""
What is an oxymoron Alex . . . ? :devil: :priate: :jest:
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - freeradical - 12-01-2011
haikuman wrote:
"""Most everything else is unreliable, including Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is generally accurate. People do intentionally screw around with Wikipedia."""
What is an oxymoron Alex . . . ? :devil: :priate: :jest:
Why? Wikipedia is generally accurate, but would you really want to use it as a source on a term paper when anyone can edit it?
Re: Your thoughts on the value of Wikipedia. - Grace62 - 12-01-2011
bwicklander wrote:
I donated a few weeks ago. I support Wikipedia every year. I find the information quite reliable, for the most part.
It is interesting that for college classes that I can't use wikipedia as a source, but college professors have no problem with me using someone's blog for the same information.
With the internet, there are few reliable sources anymore. Many publications have allowed blog style writing as journalism. Bleech!
That's a pretty standard academic policy, it's the same at my sons' schools. With blogs you have authorship; you know who wrote the material you are quoting, and you and your professors can judge the worthiness based upon that source. With wikipedia you likely have no idea who wrote the information, even though in some cases lots of references are listed.
I think wikipedia is great for certain types of informal research, but you have to approach it with a lot of caution and a critical mind.