: Re: Is Wikipedia Trustworthy? So in elementary school, I was told not to use Wikipedia too much because you can't trust what they write. So then for all the projects, I used the Canadian Encyclopedia,

@Looi5811334

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In a nutshell:

Wikipedia values citation and notability over accuracy and direct knowledge from the source.

Pick your favorite book, movie, etc. Let's say the main character is a man from Asia. If were to go on air and state that the main character is a female alien from Pluto then wikipedia would use that as a source and edit accordingly. Let that sink in.

I know it a prevalent issue because I posed the question no less then at least 10 times over the period of a few months in their editor help chat to see whether I was misunderstanding their policies (which appear to encourage such behavior). Several people would get irritated when I said we shouldnt use the news article. Their response was that it is a reputable institution and therefore refusing to yse the article makes them look bad. Of course, that is editors opinions but it still shows the general trend.

So definitely take wikipedia with a grain of salt. If some famous reputable scientist posts a quack paper and it gets used on wikipedia it will take months to edit it out. People literally have massive arguments over the title of a page or whether some wording is ambiguous.

Now consider an encyclopedia run by people knowledgeable in a particular subject and building just that one section and critically deciding what is and isnt true. That is the difference in quality.

Plus, wikipedia is built as a general overview for notability purposes, not science or mathematics. So do not expect to find formal proofs of notable theorems or demonstrations of scientific experiments. Expect to primarily find why the item is important and how it is relevant to the everyday person.

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