Week 3

 Wikipedia vs Encyclopedias


I'm sure everyone is used wikis before. Wiki made access to verified information way more simpler. You can find anything you're interested within 5 minutes. And you can gain knowledge of any depth of accuracy by following links to more and more clarifying articles.

As my mom said, when she was in the university before to learn something e.g. to write a thesis you'll be need to go to the library and hope that the book you're searching isn't taken yet. Before the Web people couldn't study as easy as now.

The other question is how much can you rely on information from Wikipedia? What is the error rate?

It turns out that if this is at least a little popular article, then the error will be noticed and corrected faster than in encyclopedias. Millions of people visit different pages and there're always people that have some knowledge and which can correct the mistake. Whereas an error that appeared in one paper encyclopedia can be replicated for almost 50 years.

However, cases of falsification take place. There was, for example, a well-known story when they wrote an article about a non-existent person - the Polish communist Henryk Batuta, who never existed.

To sum up, if the texts of the English Wikipedia articles are published on paper without pictures, then 2821 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica format will be required.

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