What are some examples of Wikipedia articles making incorrect or misleading statements?

McGruff

This is a bit vague. Did you have something in particular in mind that we can check? Being a user-written service, I imagine there are a number of mistakes. I don't know how well articles are proofed, if they are at all, or what qualifications one needs to submit an article, if any at all. It is amazing how fast it has grown. It seems as if almost anything now has a Wikipedia article. If I were to find what I thought was a mistake, I would research it in established encyclopedias and other sources and submit a referenced correction. Dec 15 05, 10:59 PM

twinflame

I smell an agenda. Dec 16 05, 2:36 AM

my_baby_love

There is no agenda or vagueness here, a prior post claimed that Wikipedia was unreliable, could anyone please show just one example of this. Dec 16 05, 9:49 AM

satguru

No agenda, last week I found the answer (apparently) to the world Decathlon record holders in it, and after I posted it was told two had been missed out. I then heard a couple more examples where similar things had happened. As a user-written site, it must be pretty hard to check every entry, so though no doubt most is honest and accurate, mistakes must get through. Dec 16 05, 10:04 AM

McGruff

I called it vague from the point of view of "is this a trivia question?" I am not aware of any errors in particular and I'm surely not about to go look for one. Dec 16 05, 10:25 AM

satguru

I see your point McG, but as I made this statement I did have to explain myself! Maybe a PM would have been a better way to ask me though. Dec 16 05, 11:15 AM

my_baby_love

Wikipedia is used by many AFT participants and has often proved itself to be a valuble resource to the site. Most refrence sources or web sites while not 100% accurate can still be considered reliable. A number of world Decathlon winners were not listed in Wikipedia that is unfortunate, but the site is still reliable. I guess that my agenda. A PM would probably have been a better way to handle this but...then the rest of the site is left with the impression given by a FT editor that Wikipedia is unreliable. Dec 16 05, 3:58 PM

robboy

The site is popular and probably by and large accurate. However, it is self-edited, meaning anyone can submit info and it becomes part of wiki's data base. This was recently in the news, with John Seigenthaler and his efforts to have erroneous info expunged from his supposed biography. I listened to the discourse on NPR, between Seigenthaler and Wiki chief Jimmy Wales, and it was allowed by Wales that bad info could very easily, and has, made it into wiki. Even worse, it takes quite a while to expunge due to the info being picked up by other sites and it continues to circulate throughout the net. http://news.yahoo.com/s/bw/tc20051214441708 Dec 16 05, 5:30 PM

satguru

I didn't mean to imply Wikipedia was rubbish- most of the time it seems very helpful, but I just happened to get caught once and then hear of a few more examples, and pointed out it wasn't quite as reliable as I'd always thought. I'll keep using it though, just be a bit more careful... Dec 16 05, 7:16 PM

JoshCaleb12

Very recently, I went to look up Rosa Parks at wikipedia, and some cad had edited all her information out and left "she was a fame seeking whore" or some other really shocking statement that was about the furthest from the truth that we could get about that particular icon of our culture... fortunately, when I went back about a minute and a half later, the original and probably proper information had been restored. I certainly hope the cad who did this was tracked down and talked to in a dark alley about what happens to kneecaps... So, yeah, occasionally, the site is inaccurate... Dec 17 05, 12:58 AM

gtho4

What McG said, what's the purpose of this Q? wikipedia.org is not the only site that has errors. A couple of years back the official website for some celeb (I can't remember which) was wrong, I gave the 3 sources I used to the webmaster (one of them was a book written by the celeb), and he altered the site's info about a week later. Dec 17 05, 1:49 AM

my_baby_love

In #61031 Wikipedia's reliability was questioned. Since Wikipedia is the most used reference source for this site this was just to clarify that statement. Dec 17 05, 8:09 PM

gmackematix

As I recall, Satguru, the decathletes you mentioned were listed in the article but you had missed to see them (unless you had already put them into the article before I looked). Wikipedia keeps previous versions of its pages and the recent changes are listed and tracked by hundreds of editors so that vandalism is usually fairly quickly reversed. URLs that continually offend are barred from editing pages. Pages on set subjects such as US Presidents or plant species have been laid out in a specific format by experts who will have checked the data entered. The number of experts that check this popular site probably means that much of the info is more accurate than that on most other sites. In additiion, each article page usually contains links to highly regarded sources such as the Imdb, the CIA Factbook and so on, so if a bit of dubious info appears to have slipped in you can check the source. What is more, if you find the info given in Wikipedia was dubious, you can go on in and change the article accordingly. I know I have occasionally. Dec 17 05, 8:56 PM

McGruff

I just came across this article, which someone has identified as having incorrect information, if you want to look at one that has been called into question. M&M's - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The candies were named for "Mars & Murrie" (Mars' business partner was Bruce Murrie, son of rival Milton S. Hershey's partner William Murrie.) M&M's soon ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M&Ms - 24k - Cached - Similar pages Talk:M&M's - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia M&M's is a bad article, which means it has been identified as adhering to the ... It says right in the article for "Mars & Murrie", Mars' business partner. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:M&M's - 13k - Cached - Similar pages Dec 18 05, 8:57 AM

zheliel

Wikipedia has good examples of Wikipedia having incorrect and misleading statements: my references are all biased articles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia Apr 10 09, 6:20 AM

Terry

I think it's so cool that wiki has articles on criticisms of itself. They do a fantastic job keeping the content remarkably accurate for what you'd expect. I considered such a free-for-all approach to quiz creation and editing years ago but decided against it given the headaches it would create. Aug 03 09, 11:28 AM

researchpurist

The problem with Wikipedia, unlike Encyclopedia Brittanica, is not just that anyone can post. It is that the sites are not peer reviewed. Though I have done extensive research on certain animals, basic points are sometimes in debate. For example, I have read several times that two toed sloths are omnivores and have frontal fangs that help them predate small mammals, very slow moving small mammals. However, further investigation contradicts this "fact". I could go online and post my sources and this theory, without positing as just that, a theory, and actually be relating erroneous information. I have even interviewed various zookeepers to mixed responses. This is simply one example of people posting fairly researched detailed information and arriving at ambiguous results. Though I have done such extensive research, I lack the uniformity of details and the authority that would be evident in another online encyclopedia. Many of the more expensive authoritative encyclopedias solicit researchers in their fields, PhD's, researchers, professors, sanctuary professionals. I could simply post my sources as those that agree with my postulate. I could possibly present inaccurate information with the best of intentions. This is simply a fact of a well developed and intentioned community database. No matter what the subject, you would have to do your own fact checking before you presented the information as authoritative. What I have stated about, for example, Encyclopedia Brittanica is accurate, and they do make every effort to peer review/fact checking as you would find in any academic journal. I encourage my students to fact check the more outrageous, seemingly illogical and sometimes outright erroneous information. They are required to consult multiple resources. One would hope that is endeavored in Wikipedia, but there is no proof or guarantee of that. Nevertheless, I do enjoy using it and it does give me more to research. I am in a highly research-oriented field and accuracy is something I am expected to rigorously pursue daily. So though I may not be an expert in any other field, I do specialize in the intracicies of the process of research and the methods of different databases to present it. I wish I could think of examples, but my "myth busters" group is so active that the details escape me. I will have to start a collection of contested information that is not fully resolved and therefore biased. I agree with Terry in that the self-criticisms are a very accurate way of conveying doubt and leading students to further research. The information is definitely generally more useful than what they would find on a general search engine. It is a good place to start and a great mode of exploring different reference sources. It has wonderful teaching potential, if not for the facts alone. The articles that state the information needs more citations are helpful, however, the citations are not necessarily well chosen and there is very little way to know if the original source is biased or peer reviewed. I think everyone has brought up good points about this service and I appreciate those who have taken the time to add to it. Even if they are incorrect, my students enjoy finding this out and it's like a scavenger hunt. Enjoy@ Feb 10 11, 12:07 AM

researchpurist

I have thought of one...in a history of Vietnam, the current capital was presented as the initial capital. Later the site was ammended to denote the historical information. Perhaps the best way is to simply choose something you are very familiar with, do a little extra research, find the original articles online (fairly easy to do now a days) and fact check yourself. You could do a brief sampling of these topics. I highly suggest this. It would be time consuming, but your intentions are not brief goals in and of themselves. I hope you find this idea to be useful. This is often how I being a research project. Why don't you explore where the idiom "a postman's holiday" comes from? I have never found a satisfactory or consistent explanation for that, both in general searches or the age range that typically uses that phrase. Also, "mind your p's and q's" which I have my own theory about. Often the elderly generation uses this saying; often the context they use it in is similar to "keep your nose clean," but sometimes their contextual reference is obscure and none of them have ever been able to tell me the origion. A book on entomology, idioms, quotations or colloquialisms might help. Those types of sources I have checked, but either they are not mentioned or they differ. Just a suggestion. Feb 10 11, 12:17 AM

Baloo55th

I could give examples of some very good hoax articles that have appeared on Wikipedia - but they were all deleted fairly quickly after I tagged them... Misinformation is added to articles, but these additions are reverted within a very short time in most cases. There are editors who just monitor certain articles or subjects. There are those who just dig out the typos and other similar errors. There are others who monitor the recent changes and new users' edits. Material that's unreferenced can be challenged and removed - especially on the English language Wikipedia. Other language Wikipedias have different criteria. Me, I do most of these things. (If they try to profile me from my Google search list for targeting advertising at me, I hate to think what it would look like...) (BTW - I'm not Baloo over there...) People also post spam and attacks. They go quickly. All in all, considering the size of the encyclopaedia and the number of people editing, it's pretty good. The occasional slip gets the publicity. The hundreds of thousands of accurate articles aren't news. Nor are the dog that never bit anyone, the train that was on time, or the person who won £10 on the lottery. Feb 10 11, 1:22 PM