User:Melicans/Why Wikipedia is the best resource on the internet

You're sitting in a classroom listening to your teacher or professor droning on about this big project you have to do. It could be an oral presentation, an essay, or even your dissertation. The list of possible topics you can work on is discussed, and then the lecture moves on to what kind of sources you can use. You barely pay any attention because you know what's going to be said. Books, Journals, and websites ending in .gov or .edu are all good, Wikipedia is bad. Big surprise. The greatest and most varied source of knowledge on the internet has been eliminated as a resource yet again.

But why?

It's a very rare thing for your professor to allow you to use Wikipedia. Most see it as an unreliable source filled with unverified data and factual mistakes. The simple truth is, they just don't get it. What they see is only the negative aspect caused by the lowest people in existence, those who take their greatest pleasure in desecrating the hard work done by other people. They fail to see the positive side, which is so evident to all of those who take their time and spend it collaborating with others to build this place. But what is the point in putting in all this work when it ultimately can't be used for anything?

Well, it can.

What to look at

Articles

It all depends on what kind of articles you are looking at for your subject. If you're doing a biology project on Heterochlamydomonas, then the profs have a point; Wikipedia probably isn't the best place for you. If, however, you're doing a project on Acrocanthosaurus, there is no reason why you can't use it as a source.

What you can use is really dependent on the quality of the article. Stubs and Start-class articles should probably not be used. There won't be a lot of information there, and the information that is there proably won't be sourced well (or at all). C-class and B-class articles are better in terms of their quality of information and sourcing, but are still probably best used for gaining a knowledge of the subject or for background reading rather than using it as an actual source in your paper. Good articles, A-class articles, and featured articles are the cream of the Wikipedia crop, in ascending order. These articles tend to be edited rather heavily, and if an edit is made on them it is probably going to be checked by an editor within an hour to make sure it isn't vandalism or unverified original research. Featured articles in particular are as close to perfection on Wikipedia as you can get; every litte detail is properly sourced, the prose flows well and is coherent, there is absolutely no unsourced information, and the article has been thoroughly reviewed and held up against Wikipedia's many policies and guidelines by a litany of editors who have deemed it to be of the utmost caliber. If you happen to find an FA that you can use as research for your topic, there is no reason why you should not be able to.

Of course even featured articles can occassionally go bad. It's best to check the article's history (more on that below) before rushing off to source it for your paper.

So how do you check to see what class an article is? In the case of featured articles there will be a star in the top-right corner of the article. For all other article just check the talk page; if the article is part of a WikiProject (which it probably is), then the article's class should be listed on the talk page under the WikiProject banner.

For your own judgement on whether you should use an article as a source or not, looking at a more thorough description of quality is probably a good idea.

History

There are two things to consider when looking at an article's "history". The first refers to any edits made to the article, which can be seen when clicking the history tab at the top of the page. This is something that you should always check. By examining the recent edits that have been made, you can see if any vandalism has occurred that has not been reverted. It's important to recognize that vandals are smarter than you may give credit for. Some go big by blanking sections of articles or replacing an infobox image with a diagram of a penis, but odds are they won't be staying around for too long before the big banhammer comes swinging their way. The most effective way to disrupt something is to do it sneakily. It could be something simple like changing the life expectancy of a Serval from 12-16 years to 14-19 years, or changing one letter in a reference's URL. But if there's a long term pattern of this and little to no reversion of it has taken place, you might want to think twice about using the article as a reference. How can you tell what is fact and what is vandalism if you do choose to use it, especially if you have very little knowledge about the subject you are researching. Checking the article's history to try and find what content could have been unrecognized vandalism is a really important step you need to take. If it all checks out and there are no questionable or suspicious edits in the recent history, you're all set to go.

The second is the article's class history. You can find this on the talk page; articles that have been nominated as a good article, an A-class article, a featured article, or for deletion should have a box which says "Article milestones". If it's been collapsed, just click "[show]" and the history will be displayed. It's a good idea to check this because not only will you see if the article was listed as one of highest-quality works on Wikipedia but you will also see if any reassessments have taken place, and if they have you can see if they were kept at the current level or delisted to a lower one. If it has been delisted, you can click the links to see why it was, and then compare the article's current state to that rationale to see if any of the concerns have been addressed. By checking "Article milestones" you can also see if the article has been peer reviewed. A peer review is when editors look over the article and address issues such as prose, grammar, spelling, and even fact-checking. If there has been a recent peer-review and their suggestions have been implemented, you're looking at a very well-written article. By looking at the article's recent history, you can judge the quality and accuracy of the statements for your own use.

Sources

Your professors will tell you that you can't use Wikipedia as a source. No "ifs", "ands", or "buts". Well that's fine, because we all know that it won't stop you from reading the Wikipedia information on your topic anyways. So what can you do? Well, Wikipedia's information has to come from somewhere, right?

Remember that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Everything that is stated here should be verified by the original source that the information came from. This could be in the form of a news article, a TV show, or a journal article. Should you be using Wikipedia as your source when the original is available? Of course not. And this is what makes Wikipedia the best resource on the internet. Maybe you can't cite it directly, but there are sources to back up every little bit of information. Read the article, find the information you're looking for, and look for the little blue super-scripted number at the end of the sentence. If you click that, it'll take you down to the References and straight to the resource you're looking for. Double-check it for accuracy and you have a source to back up a statement in your article. While you're at it, look at the other references that are being used in the article. They may have further information that you can use in your quest for sources. The wealth of information Wikipedia makes available in this manner is what makes the place a truly valuable resource for you to use.

To conclude

So in conclusion, yes you should be able to use Wikipedia as a resource for any papers/projects you may have to do. Of course there are some bad aspects to it, but the same can be said for most other resources as well. Ultimately it all comes down to the way you use it, and the same can really be said for everything else you look at. If you treat the collaboratively-written articles in the same manner as you should do any other source of information, there should be no problems. Just use your common sense.