Wikipedia question?

Wikipedia is probably a lot more trustworthy than Yahoo Answers. The Wikipedia articles have generally been more carefully written and the efforts of several (or many) people have been combined in a way that results in a consensus. In YA, there are often several answers that are mostly correct but each contains something that is confusing, erroneous or not helpful. However, questions in Yahoo are often answered by references to Wikipedia articles that contain a lot of information that is too detailed or doesn’t contribute to the point of the question. I think it is better to give a short and well focused answer with a Wikipedia reference for further information.

The authors of text books generally have a high level of expertise in their subject matter and in methods of presenting the material to others. People of equal expertise usually review a draft of a text before it is published. Professional editors and proof readers help prevent errors. Wikipedia articles are surprisingly good, but not as consistently good as text books. The constant review and improvement of Wikipedia helps, but you never know when someone has put something erroneous in an article that won’t get corrected until 10 minutes after you have read it. Even so, Wikipedia has more good information that is more accessible than any other source.

Well, considering that most here are no more qualified to answer questions than Wikipedia article writers are, I don't really have a problem with it.

And half of the answers I've seen are copy/pasted from Wiki articles anyway...just not cited.

Now if someone is asking for a "real" article, from a medical journal or similar, then I'd be opposed to posting a Wiki article.

One objective of 'Answers' as stated in the 'Home Page' is to...

*..Share knowledge.

*..Help others.

*..Earn points.

Also from the home page....

*...Answer a Question.....

"The depth of your knowledge is, well, deep. So dig some up. Share it. No matter who you are, you've got the real-life insight or scholarly nugget that will make someones day".

What I don't like is some semi-educated person using 'Wiki' as a reference and then giving another answerer a 'Thumbs Down' in order to swing votes in their own favour, which is Totally Unconscionable, particularly when that person's answer is correct.

It is also very obvious when statements from Wiki, have been copied and pasted or copy-written verbatim, in an effort to seem very knowledgable.

I always check the Wiki articles before I cite them in a Y!A. Sometimes I could type the same stuff, but I can't do complex equations in this little textbox.

Sometimes there is just too much to type up, so I defer to the guy who has already written what I wanted to say, on Wiki.

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Gunhild Oladsdottir, Queen of Demark

I find them almost always accurate, if a bit pedantic. I have no objection to it's use.

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they claim that it is an unreliable source because anyone can change it. which is sort of stupid because anyone can tell you anything here on Y!A.

rheumatoid arthritis