Jump to content

User:Jorgenev/research/Wikipedia subreddit user survey/edited list of comments

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Adding a wikipedia search keyword for my address bar was pretty much the best thing ever.


Only don't use for scholarly research because it is a collection of other articles, which are sourced and which I could easily access. I frequently use reference links for research.


Wikipedia is the best thing ever.


Wikipedia should concern itself more with being the ultimate human knowledge repository, and less with conforming to an encyclopedic style. I can't count the number of times I've seen useful information deleted by an editor with OCD and a bug up their ass because of this.


Whenever I need information, the first place I go is wikipedia. In fact, I had to look up the Myers-Briggs personality type, but it was far too long, and I kinda lost interest after the first few sentences.

I would have classified Wikipedia as truth, but some of the pages don't have a lot of sources.


Most subreddits have their own "favorite" wiki, maybe in the distant future reddit could host its own wikis. (wiki's?)


my only bad experience with wikipedia is i wrote a paper on a quote by Abraham lincoln, and it turns out they qoute wasn't by him and was said by some guy talking about him.

but it does piss me off all the teachers at my school who wont shut the hell up about wikipedia not being a credible source because "anyone can just go on there and change whatever they want" but i know that the mods try to do a good job not to let any vandilism stay on for too long.


Too many people with "this user is furry/athiest/aspergers/etc"


I'm a huge fan of Wikipedia. /r/Wikipedia helps me discover new articles all the time.


r/wikipedia is great for unearthing interesting articles I'd never run across on my own.


Good job and keep up the good work.


I use Wikipedia to look up pretty much everything.


Wikipedia would be a lot better if they were more kind to new users and new editors. It's basically impossible for an unknown author to create a new article, regardless of what it is.


Sources: Check 'em. Request them if not present


Just wiki'ed Myers-Briggs personality type, found out what it was,then took test, and gave you results to aide you in your research. Voila!

Also, much like people will prefer clicking on picture links when they see that it is an image posted on imgur.com, when i see a TIL and it is linked to an article on wikipedia i am more likely to click on the link.


People like cats a lot.

People with asperger's syndrome will read and write for a long time on that which interests them.


Pro-wiki tip: Wikipedia's most valuable information is the most often overlooked. The sources, and references sections for an article.

Wikipedia is not a primary resource, it is a tool and a great start for even the most serious of research. Most articles provide you with excellent links to sources allowing you to both fact check and literally handing you excellent reliable primary sources.

Wikipedia is a tool, it's as effective as the person using it.


Um. I don't see much connection. To me, Wikipedia is about creation, Reddit is about passive consumption. Although now that I think about it, most people probably have those around the other way.


I'm constantly fascinated by how granular wikipedia is. It is practically infinite.


Don't bet your life on it, but it's ok to bet someone else's life on it.


I'm in law school and run into plenty of words I don't know. I google each and see if one of the top 5 hits is the wikipedia entry before looking in the dictionary. I do this to get a more detailed answer (if I only had an Encyclopædia Britannica!) Also, I don't like Mannequins.


Reddit has a bias. Liberal white straight male 20-25 yo, who thinks he's superior to anyone. Bashes anyone for criticizing geeks or alikes, but bashes anyone that doesn't "fit" Reddit's profile.


The semi-high level math stuff is a real trip sometimes.


I don't contribute to Wikipedia by changing articles, I contribute by hyperlinking and adding [citation needed] when a fact is not cited. We all do our little part!


Work on wikipedia's reputation. Despite being a good source of information, in the last few years it has become somewhat of a synonym for the unreliable nature of info on the net. "You know ANYONE can edit that, don't you?" etc.


Nope. The medical stuff is the best. Especially articles on medications.


I mostly use Wikipedia for popular culture -- discographies, filmographies, Amanda Knox, that sort of thing. History, literature, sociology, psychology, anthropology are much more spotty in terms of NPOV and level of scholarly insight, especially in sources and bibliographies.


They should make it easier to edit articles


I wish there wasn't so much deletionism on wikipedia.


Wikipedia is great and /r/wikipedia is the source of all my link karma.


I find Wikipedia good for a really basic overview of a topic, something to satisfy a moment's curiosity or jog my memory. I would never use it for scholarly research, but I would use it as a place to start sourcing a bibliography.


As freely available electronic journals become the standard Wikipedia should aim to integrate frontier research knowledge so as to eventually embody (or link to) all relevant human knowledge. That is, the ideal where newly discovered information is immediately organized in the context of all other human knowledge so as to be freely and seamlessly accessible to laymen and experts alike is worth striving for.


Wikipedia benefits from conscientious, intelligent editors who work to make it better!


Editing Wikipedia could be improved.


Always check the citations. It's not unusual to note something nefarious going on, misquotes, selective bias, poor sources, etc.


Well written survey. Most surveys I fill out on the internet are shit, this one is good.


I often use Wikipedia to check facts I encounter on Reddit or to get more information about things I see on Reddit.


Wiki-walk, man. shit's real.


Change your notability guidelines, space is effectively free. If someone wants to create a page for themselves, why not?


Reddit's search functionality is terrible.


More posts need to be made in r/wikipedia


Wikipedia mods will be the reason of Wikipedia's downfall.


Reddit is worse lately


Both are convenient whilst abusing some subsistence. Reddit while high or caffeinated craving random input, Wikipedia drunk or caffeinated while craving knowledge of something obscure to settle a drunk debate (on a cellphone).

I say caffeine for both because I spend a shitload of work time on both, because my mind wanders, and I am often caffeinated.


I'm slowly drifting away from Reddit, as even the sub-reddits I enjoy are getting more and more annoying. I think Reddit's zenith has passed...ever since the damn march.


i think that it'll be hard to find a redditor that doesn't use wikipedia.


The only problem with Wikipedia is that it sucks you in. There are so many terms I don't know related to things I want to learn about, I always open like 5 pages when I seek out the information in one. It can be overwhelming, but that's not to say that it isn't good that the information is there.


I used to participate a lot on Wikipedia until a few years ago they really started focusing on rules enforcement. Not just "don't vandalize articles" but really specific stuff like "you didn't source your edit, revert" and "this is a biased statement, undo". I saw recently that the number of contributors is declining, and I'm not surprised. A minority of zealous administrators, with their draconian views on rule-enforcement, have managed to alienate the rest of the internet.


- all hard math and science articles are completely useless to the lay-person. - articles on obscure or specific subjects are generally too short to be of much use (I suppose I am an "inclusionist") - bitch, moan, the free service I use all the time is not good enough


WANT WIKIPEDIA IS NOT PAPER


Wikipedia is awesome.


I like the /r/wikipedia for finding cool links


I love both. No tips, just love.


4 cinnamon toast waffles...toast em....throw 3 pieces of cheese in between and microwave for 30 seconds. I call it, melchee.

Enjoy it.


I've never really compared the 2 side by side.


The links to Wikipedia articles frequently posted on Reddit usually grab my attention because I know they are likely to be interesting and concise, and not filled with formulas or overly verbose. That said, I am glad that those types of articles exist, I just am not interested in them for casual reading.


See something suspicious, google it.


Don't get mad about things on the internet.


Take everything with a grain of salt.


Sometimes little subjects are removed due to editors finding the topic not worthy. That's not the right word, but I'm drawing a blank, so it will have to do. The point is, who the fuck cares? Wikipedia is great for hosting the information that I can't find elsewhere. Let there be data.


I think wikipedia should have a karma system akin to reddits, with wikipedia edits being linked to previous good/bad edits. I think this would limit the damage that one-off biased editors present.


Unlock the Tosh.0 page. It was so very funny.


Both awesome


I'd really like to see wikipedia be taken serious on a scholastic and professional level. If there was some way to use a filter for *approved* and locked articles that have been proven as factual, that would be great.


The narwhal bacons at midnight or something like that


I don't think i should be used to write research papers or news articles and other professional pieces of the like, but overall it's an effective launchpad for understanding a concept. It's my go-to source when looking up something i know little about.


Wikipedia has extensive information on the British children's TV show "Knightmare"


Godspeed on your project brother.


WTF did you ask about the Myers-Brigg personality? That has long been de-bunked by personality psychologists and only favored by companies and other interested parties who want a simple way to categorize personality.

In fact, you can read all about the criticisms of Myers-Brigg on their wiki page...


Technical articles are terrible at explaining the basics of the concept, and will quickly jump into convoluted or even more technical explanations.


Reddit is a fantastic community, but you need to delve deeper into the less common subreddits if you're looking for deeper conversations.


The TIL sub reddit would be nearly empty without it.


Stream of conscious word tree refers to starting with one topic and branching out...not the subreddit


Wikipedia is a lot more useful to Reddit than Reddit is to Wikipedia.


Read through landmark Supreme Court cases one day, and read the various philosophical arguments on both sides of the greatest legal questions of the 20th century.


great for a start, but often lacks depth.


nope


I do research (academia), and Wikipedia varies from useful to an utter mess. Maths pages in particular are often a total waste of space. Pages on how to implement a method, and no detail on why it's interesting or useful. Statistical tests, for example, usually include pages and pages of detail, yet no reason why you would or wouldn't wish to use a particular test.

Wikipedia is becoming increasingly more broken.


I can't stand those things they put at the top of the articles that say that it needs to be fixed and blah blah blah. What the fuck


IMHO Myers-Briggs is total bullshit. There's my two cents.


I despise the reddit community more and more with each day.


Great place to start research into almost any topic. One of the true wonders of the post-modern world.


From what I've read outside of Wikipedia it seems that the inner workings of Wikipedia are not as transparent as they claim to be.


Is there some sort of Wikipedia add-on for chrome?


Redditors are good at the Internet and are generally curious smart people. It's no surprise that Wikipedia and Reddit have a close relationship.


Love both of them.


You should cheek our r/wikipedia it has a lot of interesting or quirky


Editors are kind of temperamental. Often a serious edit is discarded just because.


I've only edited Wikipedia's grammar/spelling, not actual information.


No, not really. But thanks!


wikipedia is good for quick facts, bad for in depth understanding of new topics. it doesn't lack detail it lacks flow and writing


All science pages with math are at a graduate level. It's stupid that there isn't any more basic parts of the articles.


Seems like reddit has a good amount of respect for Wikipedia. No "you know what to do" mass vandalism mobs or anything.


r/sysor has the most interesting articles on reddit

One time when I was cramming for an exam, I noticed that one of the sentences on Wikipedia had a [CITATION NEEDED] next to it. As it turns out, I had just finished reading the article that the claim was sourced from, so I was able to add the appropriate citation.

That's probably the Wikipedia edit that I am most proud of.


Wikipedia is good for general information, but not specifics.


TIL sends me to Wiki quite a bit. As does the more historical subs


Stopped contributing due to arbitrary standards imposed upon certain types of articles.

Example: Players playing for teams in the top division of a national league being deleted due to failing arbitrary notoriety standards. No such restrictions are in place for the vast majority of wikipedia. What is wrong with a more complete record?


I used to be a wikipedia editor. [ed. redacted] Despite my years of experience, a student who had plenty of free time on his hands (while I was at work), got my account locked for repeatedly fixing his mistakes. Apparently I was flaming him, even though his additions were uncited and not encyclopedic. Ever since then, I figure, let it degrade into a cest pool of ignorance and idiocy.


Two awesome organizations- keep up the good work folks.


I love wikipedia. Will donate annually for the rest of my life. I also have an offline wikipedia app for plane rides. Can't ever get enough. Could not get through medical school without it.


I like how the two are often together!


No.


Wikiwalking, or Wikiracing is a lot of fun.


Nah


I like r/wikipedia and wish it was more popular.


Use the discussion and history pages if you have any uncertainties about an article.

Impress friends with facts from reddit.


You can't use Wikipedia directly for most schools. However, Wikipedia will give you a good overview of almost any topic and includes links to academic literature.


I feel I can look up anything with confidence.


Love what you're doing with the place. Keep it up!


I was amazed the first time I went and read the Arbitration Committee. It really is the Supreme Court of Wikipedia, with scientific evidence and a complete corpus of standing rules.


/r/wikipedia is sometimes more offensive than /r/clopclop


Wikipedia tends to be stylistically inconsistent but factually honest.


I link to Wikipedia articles more often than actual websites, since the latter may come and go or change names, while the Wikipedia entry will probably always be there, and will get updated to reflect changing links.


reddit should get rid of total karma


Good luck with your research!


needs more cats


//""--++


today i learned should just be here is a random wikipedia article


I think Wikipedia is still young, if it can continue to grow and adapt toward global needs for accurate information it will be even more of an asset then it is now.


Sometimes too clinical and boring in it's approach. A tad of humour is always appreciated, yet it is undervalued by Wikipedia editors.


Rein in the deletionists. Some factual, relevant articles are deleted while some truly trivial, non-sourced articles are kept. Lighten up on the deletes!


Integrate the two!!!! reddipedia!


Meyers-briggs has been discredited, you probably won't get any useful info from that question


Wikipedia is awesome - especially when you experience the massive scale of the project.

What must be considered is the Wikipedia will NEVER be complete. If an article seems like crap, it won't stay that way forever. It an article is super bias then it will eventually be correctly.

Vandalism is a non-issue. Bots catch something like 99% of it and you always have people watching the Recent Changes page that will clean up the rest.

I've started learning Esperanto for the sole purpose of editing and communicating on the Esperanto Wikipedia. It has been quite an experience.


sources at the bottom are gold


Good luck with the survey!


Nope.


Just wanted to say that while I would NEVER site wikipedia in a research article, I probably wouldn't site ANY encyclopedia. I find it to be a very useful starting off point. It can present some of the controversies, and it is pretty much always right on the "fast facts" (i.e. X person was born on X date).


Not really. I think Wikipedia is what you make of it, in a way. I like that it's open- you and I can be as active as anyone else. I think they've taken great steps towards being more reliable. I'm something of an expert on American poetry- I can go through and rate articles or edit, etc. Love that.


Bitches and hoes > Wikipedia


According to the wiki page, Myers-briggs is hardly reliable, dependable, and the creators didn't have sufficient qualifications for the test to be used any more believably than horoscopes.


The more obscure the topic, the more likely what's in wiki is all the internet has on it. So whatever paragraph some other site has on it, wiki will have. It a trap, because the only way most have to research something is the internet, and if that's all the internet has, then that's it.


Rather than viewing articles as fact, I find Wikipedia to be an excellent guiding resource.


Do not like the new rating system on Wikipedia. It seems unnecessary. Was the lack of that feature a big issue before?


Reddit will most cited things on Wikipedia as fact, even if the citation itself is worthless.


I wish people in Reddit threads would discuss improving Wikipedia articles. They don't.


Random article button is useless in best of ways.


Beware a confirmation bias on the reports of Wikipedia's bias in this article. Other redditors (who are mostly liberals) will likely be reading and linking to the more liberally biased articles on Wikipedia, and will report such.


Not much to say here :)

Looking forward to seeing the results of your research on Reddit - maybe Wikipedia, too!


/r/askscience is my protip. It's not perfect but it is generally so much better than wikipedia when it comes to quickly distilling what is worthwhile. That said I don't deal with my topic of expertise on /r/askscience, either. but their moderators and experts set the standard for online anonymous discussions.


upvote articles, but we already have r/wikipedia


Wikipedia quality varies from article to article. A random article may be very well written, better than any encyclopedia. Others are terribly out of date, poorly written, blatantly incorrect facts, etc.


How is your day?


Why would you ask for the M-B, it is a complete joke.


I've tried editing wiki articles before, but I just looked at the coding and was flabbergasted with the complexity behind it and gave up


  • 3 When Wikipedia is not the truth, a seasoned reader can tell.

There are two different mindsets warring in Wikipedia: lumpers and separators (if I recall correctly). Separators want to give everything its own page. Lumpers want to merge topics when they are reasonably able to do so. A similar kind of thing will happen when a popular subreddit tries to redefine exactly what the subreddit is for, telling people who want to post memes (or some other particular kind of post) to make their own subreddit. Those Redditors would fall closer to a separator way of thinking. Lumpers like "mainstream" subreddits, accepting a broad variety of submissions under one name.

I kind of wish there was the scholarly version of Wikipedia existed, the kind of Wikipedia that was originally intended.


Wikipedia is a great resource- a free, searchable encyclopedia that updates constantly and cites its sources is a beautiful idea.


Wikipedia has been scratching my instant-gratification desire to learn things for years now. Curious about linguistic origins of a word? Wikipedia. How is that beer made? Wikipedia. What the heck are gluons? Wikipedia. I want to learn more about this musician. Wikipedia.

And on and on. Insatiable curiosity and Wikipedia go hand in hand.

Reddit on the other hand, goes well with boredom and idleness. Learning things I wasn't expecting to. occupying time between bits of life.


Reddit is going to crap, I used to read the comments more than the articles. I still do, but I don't know why or to what end.


It's fucking awesome.


I'm saving them so I'll have an advantage.


TIL = Wikipedia


Wikipedia's a fantastic resource. Humanity knows more than it's ever known, and it's amazing that we can start to consolidate that knowledge into one massive database like this.


I'm a big fan of history and Wikipedia has all kinds of great articles.


Nope.


TIL


I like turtles.


My MBTI type is XXXX (middle of the road on everything).


institute a google labs-esque feature that prevents me from wandering wikipedia for hours on end reading random (albeit interesting!) shit


My biggest problem with Wikipedia is that there are never enough images, especially of actors. Sometimes I consider doing it myself but I'm lazy / I don't know how, but seriously I don't understand how people can write page-long articles about actors that have been in dozens of movies and not put a simple #$%#in' picture!


Random Article + TIL = free karma


Wikipedia is amazing, and like recruit, is an example of the power of the hive mind.


One continuum you can view social media through, is how much of the focus is on the person vs. the content. Facebook is at one extreme: it's all about the person. Wikipedia is social media at the other extreme: yes, you can see who made what edits and follow the flow of conversation, but the focus is very heavily on the content itself. You cannot use Facebook without focusing on the people, but you can use Wikipedia without even noticing them.

reddit is towards the Wikipedia side of social media, far more than most.


You can get through med school using mostly Wikipedia.


I have looked up many things I have seen on reddit in wikipedia. From the obscure historical figure, to the pop culture phenomenon that everybody seems to know about except me.


it's good to read the talk pages to see the behind the scenes view. I think it gets a better picture of the biases for different articles.


Wikipedia is really good for factual stuff but It can be good for more opinion based problem because most of the time you are informed if the subject is opened to debate so you can take the article for what it is.


References and sources are what give an argument strength. Wikipedia does this very well, and I suspect that is why the intellectual community uses it.


Google


please stop being so good. Internet has replaced too many hours of book reading!!


Follow the Wikipedia wormhole.


yay everything


no


I've read a lot of criticisms of the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. Just FYI many people consider it to not be very reliable. Other's claim it's a pseudo-science.


i read http://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia fairly frequently, find it pretty enjoyable. it like the 'random article' button, but i get to skip a lot of the duller entries.


Good show.


I can't imagine life without Wikipedia. There are a few necessities of the internet: Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Amazon are 4 things I can't live without! (Yes I'm ranking Wikipedia higher than Reddit).


I use Wikipedia a lot for TV shows, the episode guides are handy, accurate and updated quickly. I've come across many interesting articles on wikipedia. It gets better and better and is an amazing resource. It's my first stop when researching anything.


Myers Briggs is not a good measure of anything. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers_briggs#Validity


Not related to reddit but hopefully helpful. In high school our computer science class made a fake article for our teacher. Of course it got removed within an hour but we fought it kept adding sources and stuff, and wikpedia was all like "provide library of congress numbers or we're going to remove it". The battle went on for months, every time we'd name a website, and create the site so it'd be a real reference they'd check out made up site and call bullshit. They were pretty intense about us getting sources since our teacher wasn't well known and verifiable just by common knowledge. Ever since then I've somewhat trusted wikipedia.


Fight deletionism. Christopher Monsanto was a black eye. Pop culture minutiae, of all cultures, belong.


Post jailbait and kittens.


For the "number of edits" question, "10000+" should be changed to "Over 9000". This is reddit, after all. We love our memes.


N/A.


In both websites, popular opinion tends to "rise to the top." Both websites have policies that try to prevent this (reddit: don't downvote purely because of disagreement; wikipedia: fairness standards/policies), but neither one seems to do it successfully. From an interesting article on textforest (since deleted): "reddit can use their groupthink and voting reinforcements to make it feel like gay-marriage is right, marijuana is about to be legal, Christianity is dead, men and women are the same, transsexuals are normal, etc. But this only exists within the virtual reality of reddit.com, and the false view of community that is felt from within the bubble."


Wikipedia is best used as a resource to find sources for a paper or research rather than as a source unto itself. It's like a large phonebook of information about anything you could ever want to know.


i don't want to type


Keep up the good work.


Check out the articles on terraforming mars and venus... also play 6-clicks to hitler (start on a random article and make it to hitler in 6 links or less).


Getting article previews by hovering over a link is awesome. I don't have the link offhand, but it should be easy to google.


Seriously, this shit sucks. The only solution is to kill all the liberal mods who don't give a fuck about NPOV. Wikipedia is so infested by liberalism that virtually any article concerning politics or race can be considered NPOV.


gawd i love wikipedia. i read the wikipedia article on myers-briggs types after completing an online test. it's just unbelievably omniscient.


A study published in Nature has found Wikipedia to be only slightly more inaccurate than the Encyclopædia Britannica. I have used Wikipedia as a non-primary source for college papers and felt perfectly fine doing so.


This is one of the greatest sites on the internet.


The new research that indicates how constant use of the Internet is changing the way memories are formed so that we learn where to find information instead of actually learning it kind of freaks me out.


Do something to change the idea that Wikipedia is unreliable


The Office is a pretty good show.


Wikipedia seems a bit skewed on its notability requirements. A small town is apparently automatically notable while other subjects which would seem to at least moderately impactful or give a greater depiction of how people interact are deemed not notable. This is particularly the case for online communities and culture. I'm not saying Wikipedia should become Encyclopedia Dramatica or anything of the sort, but significant cultures and communities lack articles describing them and their customs or the articles are deleted simply because, it would seem, they do not have a physical location or representation. Doesn't make any sense.


Not great for research directly, but fantastic as a portal to more verifiable information (the citations)


Wikipedia Gadgets


I will be shocked if there is not a very strong relationship between reddit and editors of wikipedia. The large number of wikipedia links and the even larger number of vocal users of reddit who engage other users to make sure that something communicated incorrectly or factually inaccurate is corrected is very, very high. It would seem that these type of people would be the same to spend free time editing wikipedia.


on both, i would verify info before using it for Nything serious


[alt-x]. all. day.


Can't be bothered to deal with edit wars - I find it hard to accept that its main edit power is probably unemployed.


You know what is really fun- wikipedia races:

1. Get two people on two computers of similar speeds

2. Have the crowd think of two completely unrelated things (i.e.- Yangtze River dolphins & Carquinez, CA).

3. Have a race starting at the dolphins, ending at Carquinez.


Please don't make Reddit any more popular. The kids have infiltrated and the quality of content has seriously declined in the past couple years.


Wikipedia is for knowledge reddit is for fucking around.


I enjoyed this survey; upvote.


I think Wikipedia has a very large chance of influencing how people learn and is a very very good thing.


if you want to search images easy, you can just type File:whatever in the search box and it will list image files related to what you are typing.


I hope they keep doing what they're doing!


They're both wonderful examples of knowledge- and information-sharing communities in an era of newfound equity of information control. Both sites are examples of the grassroots of intellectual discourse in the Internet society. Both exist in their successful forms because they are community driven. Wikipedia's function is as a repository for knowledge and reference material on what is current. Reddit is a place where users of knowledge wield it in order to explore their interests and improve current understandings. Or to read f7u12 comics and ride the pun-thread train.


When plagiarizing wikipedia, cite their sources as yours.


i am annoyed that you even asked for my myers-briggs personality type. read the wikipedia article and critically consider its origin, validity and reliability.


wikipedia simple English


There should be a standardized pronunciation system. Presently, sometimes broad IPA, sometimes narrow IPA, sometimes just vague phonetics, most often nothing at all.


Onions and milk are a surprisingly awesome combination.


Nah.


please post the resulting article.


any article is a finite degree away from philosophy; follow the first link not in pronunciation and repeat until arrived


Share your knowledge, don't hoard it!


Can I have the cake now?


Useful as a reference, but isn't something you'd generally sink a lot of time into. I would much rather hear a laconic version of an article than have wikipedia directly sourced when reading a post on reddit.


NOPE.


bacon


You should make sure to backup all the info that's used as references and is hosted on other sites.


Nope


I use wikipedia for research only to find sources from their references since most teachers will take sources from anywhere on the internet but wikipedia.


Keep fighting the good fight.


Made college infinitely easier


If Reddit is down I read Wikipedia Recent Changes.


Myers-Briggs is a cold-reading sham!


nah


i think that for the most part, the first paragraph should be as absolute basic as possible, and then should be expandable for more "basic" details. i may not want to read the whole article, but i still want to know a little bit more, and be a little more informed on the topic.

another thing that ill say is that the timeline is a pain in the ass to get right in a few articles. wikipedia separates it into categories such as Early Life,....., Death, Legacy, etc., but they could relate more to each other in some of the more poorly written articles


Myers-Briggs is an outstandingly silly metric to use when talking about anything.


Want an article to be better, but scared to edit it yourself? Leave a comment on the talk page.


Keep it up. It's the first source people go to, just isn't meant to be the last one.


I love the random article generator, but often will get pages that aren't really an article, but more of a reference or something like that.

Also, it'd be nice if there was a way of differentiating links that lead to non-existent articles and real articles. maybe a different color?


I wished all sites had a wiki section. People work together to make sense of stuff.


Universities are good about teaching about how Wikipedia is open to be edited by mostly anyone, so most intelligent people can understand not to rely on it as a perfect information source.


Wikipedia habits, karma count, MBTI... Sounds interesting...


Don't take any info as 100% correct without looking at the citations, so citations with broken or moved links are a big detriment to creditability.


wikiball is fun, random article would be made even awesomer if you could select a category from which to random pick, say historical figures, animals, wars, etc.


I'm neutral to the whole thing really... I'm just high and bored at 2am...


My dick


rocking back and forth on the toilet helps you poo.


Nope


<3


I enjoy using the random page feature.


Always select Wikipedia 1st on almost any subject. Seems as reliable in general as almost any other source on the internets.


Browse with caution.


It'd be nice to include more prevalent alerts when data on a page is hotly contested or subject to several quick edits.


I've never thought of the relationship between the two sites before, but it actually seems pretty interesting! Both are maintained by those who are internet-savvy, both have content that is produced and edited by the users, and both use a generally laissez-faire form of moderation to great success. Curious to see what your report will be about,


The editing interface is seriously lacking.


Wikipedia is most useful for quick references, like being at work and forgetting a formula, looking up a band, etc. I would never use it for serious research, but it is great for every day things and occasionally surprises me with information I never knew existed (like whale drops).


Most of my visits to wikipedia are through a link on reddit.


Good marriage, wikipedia has great.articles and reddit helps me find them.


The "list of" search on wikipedia often yields gold.


i think articles in the maths and sciences, which i'm usually referencing, are usually more "true"


nah


Ever see conservapedia? It is what happens when idiots are allowed to host and admin their own version of wikipedia. Worth quite a few laughs if you ever have the time.


Myers-Briggs is useless pseudo science.


Often, important information is buried deep in the article, can you have a "short outline" of big articles with just the most important information like: - fact 1 - fact 2 ...


-


I quite often go to wikipedia from links on reddit, or to find out more about something mentioned on reddit.


Still Bananas.


Funfax: Wikipedia is more accurate than Encyclopædia Britannica.


my biggest disappointment at Wikipedia is that many of the scholars i want to know more about don't have pages. generally, these are really big people in my field (Mesoamerican Anthropology & Archaeology). i realize this is not Wikipedia's fault, but the site is the readily available scapegoat.

good luck with your survey.


just for full disclosure, my "comment karma" response here is cumulative over a 6-year period of using different accounts. I had one account at 15k comment+link, another at 8, etc. I don't have a "main" account.


Good luck with your survey. Gogogogo.


Wikipedia suggest MBTI is unreliable and highly variable for a single individual (quoting 36 to 76% of testee changing type after a retest, with strong influence of time between retests).


The Wikimedia Foundation should invest less in central servers, and more in getting a read-only mirror version distributed to end-user ISPs. Many ISPs have already shown themselves to be willing and able to host mirrors of various community-oriented content (e.g. Linux distributions) gratis, so if the central site could redirect people to their local mirror by default for read-only operations, Wikimedia's running costs would plummet.

I'm sure I'm not the only Redditor who would be happy to take up, say, a 12-month contract to build and organise the implementation of such a distributed system.


Keep up the good work!


The subreddit /wikipedia always links to the entire article (or section), which may result in TL;DR. A highlight function (to indicate what section or phrase one was interested in) would come in handy when posting a wiki on reddit.


None


The question regarding Wikipedia editors' intelligence is not readily answerable as a single number. Some content seems to rate a 10 to me, some far below.


Good luck on your survey!


An encyclopedia should never be a primary source in academic lit, but it is the perfect starting place when unfamiliar with a topic.


2 two most damaging factors to a productive workday; mine in-particular


You know what would be cool?

The Khan Academy provides lots of video tutorials on all manner of academic topics, such as Maths. More recently they created a 'road-map' type chart that allows you to view the inter-dependencies of maths topics and progress through them appropriately, building understanding from the foundation, upwards.

Perhaps it would be cool if someone made something similar for some themed Wikipedia topics. Often, learning about a topic in depth on Wikipedia prompts you to read foundational material AFTER you've begun reading about a topic ("What does that mean?" *click*) which is kind of an unintuitive ordering.

Perhaps this could simply be solved by a tool embedded in wikipedia pages that show the 'stack' of topics by which you arrived on the current page. It'd help contextualize the intricate web of material you are reading, perhaps, and more readily see what topics are foundational and to what they are the foundations.


Huge fan of r/wikipedia, and of r/TIL where most of the good stuff is on wikipedia. Don't have any ideas as of now, but would be delighted to help out. Cheers!


Anytime something can be improved in Wikipedia, improve it.


Booo


I would much rather read more random Wiki pages/TILs than another god awful rage comic, silly meme, vapid celebrity AMA, or a sick, twisted combination of those things. Y U NO POST KEWL STUFF NEMORE REDDITORS? I think I am going to have to just unfrontpage tons of subreddits ;_;


Fuck the deletionists


I have *no* idea about wikipedia editors, so don't put any weight on my answers about their intelligence or personality if possible.

It's like asking my opinion about your mother. (She's cute.)


Pretty good survey. Would love to see the results.


Awesomeness is user submitted.


Post articles that need a fix-up in relevant subreddits.


I've got nothing helpful, but the idea of connecting Reddit and Wikipedia in any way is almost too good to be true.


I like it when the TARDIS goes '"vworp vworp"


Keep up the good work, I s'pose. Can't think of much in the way of criticism.


I notice that for weeks after an article on Wikipedia has been linked on reddit, individual commenters will make references to the article, either directly or by relaying facts that came from the article almost verbatim. Given reddit's fast pace and consequentially short memory, this is a pretty neat phenomenon. It's a relief from the stupid flash-in-the-pan memes they usually spout, especially if the article was well-written or enlightening.

It's fascinating to see knowledge spread so eagerly. The "common misperceptions" article is probably my favorite example of this. Every time reddit rediscovers it, there is another weeks-long wave of smug/excited anti-folk wisdom from the young people who have seen it for the first time. I enjoy seeing those "actually ..." comments, even when they don't reference the original article. Of course this fact-spreading can be dangerous if the original article was poorly researched or incorrect, but that can happen with news articles and secondary sources outside Wikipedia as well.

A note: reddit seems to hate Wikipedia editors. Vandalism nonwithstanding, there does seem to be a perception that any changes made to any article will be reversed -- even if the changes are justified -- because of an editor's unwarranted feelings of propriety over an article.


That whole Myers-Briggs personality question *almost* had me taking another survey to fill out this survey. You clever bastards.


For people that speak multiple languages it is often very useful to read both/more languages on a topic


Wikipedia's an awesome source of knowledge. I've hardly ever come across anything inaccurate on there (apart from the odd bit of vandalism, which is very obviously false).


None


Wikipedia should not try to be like Reddit. Each has its strengths and weaknesses.


I love looking at the talk pages on controversial subjects - not the big things like religion or anything, the little ones, like all the pages to do with the British Isles and all the alternate names for the area. So funny


I think that more focus needs to be put into Wikibooks... Many of the books are incomplete but could be finished with the help of one or two experts. In my opinion, Wikibooks is better that Wikipedia because it increases depth in a subject rather than superficial knowledge.


Wikipedia: The Hitler game. Press random then the person who can get to Hitler (any other famous person you chose - at the discretion of those playing) in the fewest clicks wins.

Reddit: Not even once.


Quality on Wikipedia differs very much from language to language. The Dutch one is pretty awful, the English is okay, the German one is most excellent. My main problem with Wikipedia is that the writing might be correct but the writing style is generally not very good as is the overall structure of the articles. Discussing with Wikipedians can be very frustrating. They tend to claim ownership over articles and revert everything to their own last mediocre edit.


There's Always Money In The Banana Stand


I love wikipedia. wikipedia was my first internet knowledge love. And reddit my downfall. I hate reddit.


I love wikipedia.


I love the growth Wikipedia has seen in the last 4 years. I am into Military History and there are a lot of very niche subjects that were barely touched on Wikipedia a few years ago but now you can find a dearth of information in seconds. It's awesome! :D


Wikipedia's culture is ten years old. reddit has the tools to make people donate large amounts of text ... I see synergy potential.

My view: Reddit has true gems of text (cf. "kill local printers. kill them with fire.") ... but never what you were lookingfor. Wikipedia always has what you are looking for, but never such a gem.

Wikipedia articles should have a tl;dr or at least some feature that rewards readability and appeal to random readers. Reddit has brought this to perfection.


why does conservapedia exist? people are so dumb.


woohoo /r/wikipedia


I think Wikipedia is generally on the right track.


Jesus spelled backwards sounds like "sausage"


Always cross-check any information that you deem important to whatever you're doing.


The mere fact that Wikipedia is still around and still has open membership, after 11 years, is absolutely amazing. Where's the rot?


This might be a crazy/stupid idea, but I just think it'd be neat if there was a button to search for the topic on Google Scholar. TBH, that's usually my next step if I'm actually trying to learn about something, especially if it's a science article. I'll look through the references at the bottom and see if there's a good paper in there, but more often than not, I just search for it on GS and see what comes up.

Thanks for doing what you do. Keep it up.


You should work harder on increasing your number of female editors.


Leave the default /r/ asap


I see a strong distinction between "editing Wikipedia" and "making a change to an article that stays". Anyone can fix grammar or add "PENIS PENIS PENIS" to an article. Writing a paragraph or two that stays mostly unchanged for years... that's my favorite personal Wikipedia achievement.


Be less liberal. /r/politics is teh cancer spreading to /r/pics, worldnews, DAE, TIL, funny, humor, and others. It must be stopped.


I understand why Wikipedia has strict editing guidelines (to ensure reliability, high standards etc.) but the barrier for the casual user to contribute is enormous. Again, this makes sense to stop Average Joe posting what he read in a chain email, but when well-intentioned contributors start an article they wish to complete, it will almost always be deleted on the spot for not being important enough, or for not being perfect.

This is where I disagree with the policy on Wikipedia, if an article was important enough to a person that they felt the need to add it to Wikipedia, then it's important to at least 1 person. Hard drive space is not so expensive that Wikipedia needs to delete every article that isn't perfect to start with.

There is a big air of elitism and arrogance to every new contributor who doesn't magically know every policy and procedure on Wikipedia, and turning away every new contributor will leave Wikipedia with no new editors in some years.

Just my thoughts


Even a small wikipedia edit is exhilarating.


no


make sure that all references are accessible. Nothing I hate more than trying to suss out the reliability of an article and finding sources behind paywalls or out of date.


Love both sites. Drastically improves my life.


r/wikipedia?


I'm pretty sure TIL has linked to almost every wikipedia article out there.


Reddit is slowly devolving.


sometime i wish the articles were a bit more verifiable


I tend not to click on a Wikipedia link from Reddit because usually the submission title doesn't tell me anything about the content. One thing I would like (but may be annoying in reality) is for all the blue text in Wikipedia to give a very brief summary of what the word is when you hover over it. For example, let's say I'm reading an article on apples. The first blue link is over the word pomaceous and the link goes to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pome. I would rather the hovertext say pome is the botanical word for fruit produced by flowering plants. Then, if I were more interested, I could click that link. Currently, I have to visit the Pome page. Yeah, this is r/firstworldproblems. Also, I would like to edit Wikipedia, but I don't know how and I'm too lazy to get an account and learn. I'm sure there are others like me.


Both suffer/profit from their openness. There are many people who are keen to promote the narrative they agree with at the expense of minority opinions, some of which may have merit. The apparent viewpoint of both is at the mercy of trends and fashion in terms of contributors uncritically adopting a stance that seems to fit with the prevailing attitude. However, the actual attitudes of the membership are much more varied and are not represented by the vocal many who actually post and edit content.


Check r/wikipedia for pointers to interesting articles.


Wikipedia is no less - and is perhaps (due to collaboration) more - accurate and unbiased than encyclopedias, textbooks, and other content.


incredible sources of communication for and amongst people. the most incredible part of both sites is that you can never tell if the people contributing are CEOs or high school dropouts thereby affording both - potentially for the first and only time - equal credibility in the eyes of other readers and viewers.


No, but I feel uncomfortable leaving fields blank. I'm sorry.


People need to stop caring about karma so much. Especially how much karma others have. Somebody needs to tell them it doesn't matter.


wikipedia > reddit


N/A


Bacon


I like turtles.


"If we no longer need memory, all we have left is intelligence"


random page <3


Wikipedia needs to lighten their restrictions on what is allowed to be a page. I want more, I want a page on everything. You should be erasing and banning falsehoods, not truth that a select crew of editors deems not important enough.


Have you seen this redesign idea? It looks freakin' sweet.

http://www.movingbrands.com/?category_name=wikipedia-work


I like Wikipedia and I think it's a great tool. I have heard horror stories that it can be hard to edit due to some very strict editors, but other than that I've only positive things to say about it.


Don't funnel tequila.


don't believe myers-briggs accurately measures personality


Always look at comments and discussion before you take anything seriously, 99% of outrageous political news is exaggerated bullshit ("GE pays no taxes!")


I always, always click wikipedia links in reddit. More than imgur links. They are always interesting and often lead to the loss of a day from following down a wikipedia hole.


I download some Wiki articles that I think are really important. /nerd


If you have never seen the list of lamest edit wars, WP:LAME, you're missing out.

Also, look through the various Wikipedia essays (Category:Wikipedia essays) sometime. Whatever policy you really hate, someone has probably written a pretty good piece arguing for it. You may not come out agreeing but at least you'll be able to see the other side. (Also, almost any trivial bit of practice has some people who are really really opinionated about the Right Way To Do It.) Most people on Wikipedia don't do things others dislike because they're jerks, but because they really, really think they're right.


I just love wikiwalking. I even got an app that stacks articles so I've always got a honeypot of untapped intrestingness for downtime. I think it's the single greatest concept on the web.


People often think of "Wikipedia" and "Reddit" as a single hivemind. In reality, both the communities are just reflections of the world we live in -- they have all kinds of people. You can prove that Wikipedia is anti-Jewish if you want, you can prove it's run by the Jews, if you want.


Wikipedia is as accurate as the citations. Trust it's sources, not Wikipedia itself.


Take it for what it is. A website with information from lots of different sometimes-verified people. Sometimes its brilliant, sometimes its garbage. Yay democracy!


Sweden liberalized its telecommunications industry starting in 1980s and being formally liberalized in 1993.


Including the Wikipedia logo in Reddit post titles might be useful.


I know relatively little about the backend structure of WikiPedia. That being said, it appears that strengths to the site are seen when users 1) write/edit articles, 2) "police" the site, and 3) refer/make referrals to the site. One initiative in this regard may be to come up with some kind of incentive system that rewards users when they do these things. A simple incentive system could be created that is very similar to Reddit's, where users can upvote or downvote users/articles, and also award badges. This type of system could also promote donations.

Another idea for WikiPedia could be to turn a version of it (or create a separate site) as a structured educational tool. If one were to aggregate many articles from Wikipedia, vet them, and organize them into a coherent learning tool, the information as a topic could be significantly more useful and improve WikiPedia's reputation for accurate information. A project such as this could easily turn into/replace textbooks of many kinds, and could act as a free source of organized information for those who can't otherwise afford it.

In my opinion, WikiPedia has made incredible leaps and bounds in the way of collecting, organizing, vetting, and disseminating information. And it is truly amazing that your service is provided for free. If WikiPedia would like to take their work/organization to the next level, they may find success in new mediums for disseminating the information (such as an online, structured textbook).

I would be delighted to discuss these or other ideas further: [ed. redacted]


you should get karma in reddit for contributing to wikipedia


Stop butchering long articles


I stopped contributing to Wikipedia. Occasionally bother to try to add some sense to Talk pages.

Reddit has similar problems of limited breadth due to squeezing out diversity -- and with more contributors of low intelligence and limited experience who believe that what they think is universal truth. I read only a small subsection, and will probably leave soon.


I would like to see the results \ conclusion of this survey, if you emailed them to [ed. redacted] that would be awesome


r/wikipedia, there was a discussion in r/programming a while back about the deletion of the article on Nemerle. I find that overall redditors feel that Wikipedia has too much bureaucracy, a sentiment I don't quite agree with.


r/wikipedia rocks :)


<3 reddit


They both are very cool


45% of the 'random article' links take me to Japanese TV shows /cartoons.