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i discovered this site last year while i was searching for video game informations in japanese .

i searched for "guilty gear" (name of a popular arcade game in japan) in both english and japanese,
the japanese version gives more complete and precise information.
however, the english version gives better results for "nba" than japanese version.

i suggest one find out the topic's background first, then search the topic in its apporprate language.
(...if you are able to understand that language...)

I found no problems when it came to things that I knew about. The very idea of it first bothered me because I know of some of the stupider things online, but as I began to use it (I knew of Wikipedia a while ago) I began to trust it more.

I take the position that Wikipedia is a great starting tool for your research, or when you are simply looking up information. I cannot see using it however to find the end-all answer about something. While it is self-healing, it introduces the problem of who wrote what you are reading? The anonymous-ness feel to it makes the data (in my mind) less true, and it should be checked along with other sources.

While the interenet can't always be trusted as a reliable source of information, I think most of it is because people like to take the opinions of others as the gospel truth. This misinformation is mostly going to be found on personal websites and forums, and much less so on pure academic or academically-inclined websites like the Wikipedia.

Since the correction time as you mentioned is fairly quick (within 2-3 days), all one would need to do is double check the source a week later and compare what was originally written. If there's a conflict, then obviously something might be up, but really -- who has nothing better to do than to keep putting up wrong information in one or two places within such a vast database?

Well I searched for RFID since I've written multiple research papers on it and found the information to be extremely accurate, though rather concise. I did find one mistake (a mere spelling error), and I fixed it:)

One problem I have with wiki is that once it gets enough attention about how it's self-healing and all that, there will be a mad rush to test its self-healing power in order for users to see how long it takes. With more and more people testing this out, it makes me skeptical about what information is accurate and what has simply been changed as a test to the wiki community.

I have searched through Wikipedia and found that there is alot of useful information on certain topics. As I read throught some of the info I found that alot of info was accurate, but I still believe that if I need to know about something I would look there for a basic idea, but then search for another source that confirms with what it says to be sure that it is the truth. Of course with the web today, you can never be to sure what is fact or fiction. When I first heard about it I didn't expect the info I would find to be that great, but after searching through the site I would have to say that I was surprised. Also I have read the comments for this before writing this and I would have to agree with Nick about the self-healing subject. If everyone test this site how is the info going to be right.

I've read over the articles listed here, especially focusing on the wikipedia sites, and I found I'm not as skeptical about the wiki sites as I was when first introduced. In the wikipedia article on wikis, it states there are people who manage these sites, and even some sites that are locked so only certain management people can access them for editing. It doesn't seem as if people just throw things up on these sites with carelessness; plus I'm sure many people have no idea what a wiki even is, so the people viewing, using, and editing these sites must have some knowledge about computers and technology, which makes the sites seem have more validity. I realize that surely anyone can make changes to any area of the wikipedia, and there are some who will intentionally enter false information, but somebody's got to have a lot of time on their hands to mess around with it that much. Plus the sites, as we discussed in class, are fixed within a few days after misinformation is posted. The site seems to be a valuable source, but I think personally I would use it for referencing only certain topics, such as computers, html, etc. I don't think I would rely solely on wikipedia for a large research project for a class.

I had never heard of Wikipedia before, and I found it really interesting. My first response was to assume it was unreliable since anybody can basically post whatever they want as truth, but I was impressed when Professor Lawley told us how quickly false information seems to get corrected. I was not able to find any information that I know to be false on the site. I believe I will use the site in the future to find some basic information about a topic, but I would look to other sources to back up the information. I would not rely solely on the Wikipedia. I would be worried that I was reading false information before it had a chance to get corrected.

I also find wikipedia a very intriguing concept and I do use it occasionally to find quick and concise information about topics I know little-to-nothing about (for example, a computer programming concept that an SE friend of mine was telling me about). I do trust its content for my own purposes because I typically use it to learn about concepts from logic/mathematics, but I would probably not trust it as wholly for topics that could potentially be more biased (such as political topics). A factual error is much more obvious and more easily fixed than a subtle bias, and I cannot see myself using it for anything but casual personal research.

I didn't find any articles with any glaring errors as I looked at articles on topics with which I was familiar, so it seems to be working well!

I don't really see the "tests" people do as being too much of a problem because I don't think hoards of people are going to be constantly modifying the info over and over. And obvious trolling will be very easily spotted and corrected, so that is not really a concern either.

I had never heard of Wikipedia before, and when you first mentioned that information can be added or changed by anyone, I was a bit skeptical. But after looking over the articles and the site a bit, it seems pretty reliable. And the fact that the purposely made errors you told us about were changed in a matter of 2-3 days makes it seem an even more reliable source. I even compared a few things to another encyclopedia site and the information matched up pretty well. In most cases Wikipedia had much more information also. Even though the information seems to be reliable, I am still not sure if I would completely trust it if I were doing research for a class project.

I was a little leary when i first heard about wikipedia, i mean who would believe an encyclopedia that is there for anyone to write and erase as they please.
After diving deeper and actually reading for awhile about a few topics i was somewhat knowledgeable about i found that this is a very reliable source of information. i couldn't find anything out of the ordinary on the 3 topics i checked.
Something that this encyclopeida enables is the ability for things to be undated in realtime. I checked the section on the band Nine Inch Nails, and they already have the information up... and correct, about their upcoming 2005 release. This alone amazed me.
Overall i believe wikipedia and other large community sites that have similar setups could work just fine for research.

Like most of the other people here, I wasn't sure about the Wikipedia at first but after I went there and wandered around through a few topics I was surprised at how up to date and accurate the information was. It would probably make a really good starting point for researching a topic, giving you a general idea about it. I probably wouldn’t use this for anything more than a starting point.

I love wikipedia.

It is that simple. The power of the internet it fulfilled in this site. Although it is true, in the begining it is very easy to manipulate the information to make it impossible to get accurate info... with the amount of people interested in it, contributing, and correcting - it is an invaluable resource that can provide in depth answers to questions that might be hard to find elsewhere.

Information is generally accurate and it is the first stop to make if you want to research almost any topic. Everyone knows a lot about at least one thing - this gives the ability for each person to put in a little more information for the rest of the world

I like the idea of Wikipedia, the fact that anyone and everyone can add information to any entry and if there is no corresponding entry, they can create one. It's the core of the Internet, enabling all users to reach and share information that's out there on the web. And though Wikipedia is a user's encyclopedia, there is still checking to make sure the info is correct. But... some of it still makes me skeptical. The idea that someone can come in and change the info around (even if it is caught a few days later) still scares me a bit. The idea that you have to go back and keep checking the info to make sure it is consistent seems like more trouble than it should be. I know that it is probably 99.9% accurate, but there are still loopholes - for instance, I changed some info about Saint Bernards over a week ago, and yet it has gone uncorrected. I'm going to change even more and see if that sparks any attention.

I guess in the end, I think that Wikipedia is a good starting place to get the overall concept of an idea, but to use it for scholarly information seems like it could be a teeny bit sketchy.

Wiki's seem like a good idea to me. Everyone can find an enciclopidea(but not a dictionary) online, but i think wiki's have the personal slant that helps you understand it more. The idea of anyone tampering with the material doesn't really bother me. If you use it as your one and only resource to figure something out, then you are getting your self in trouble anyway.

Very interesting idea. I am still a little hesitant to trust random people on the internet. However, the information I looked up seemed to be pretty accurate. I think it would be good for looking up random tidbits of info but I wouldn't consider using it as a resource for a project.