[nadams]

> Wiki is not a very reliable source for citations

I've always found this paradigm troubling. Any class I've been in has banned the use of wikipedia - but not big-jims-site-o-facts.com, freewebs.com/someuser/page-copied-from-wikipedia.html, or president-facts-dynamic-dns.us.to/obama.html . I'm not saying wikipedia is perfect - but the simple fact that people have bots that monitor pages for bad edits I'm much more likely to believe a wikipedia page than some random buzzfeed article.

[bholdr]

>I'm much more likely to believe a wikipedia page than some random buzzfeed article.

I think that's part of the problem. You (almost blindly) trust it. Not saying Wikipedia in any way can be compared to buzzed articles, but people don't use buzzfeed articles to make a scientific point in an argument because Buzzfeed is very explicit about what it is and what is not.

I feel with Wikipedia it is not as clear, so when using it for your arguments, one should treat it with caution.

[FilterSweep]

> because Buzzfeed is very explicit about what it is and what is not.

Are you sure about this assertion?

The site is full of neglecting to give credit where credit is due [0] [1] [2], spreading false rumors about important topics [3], and blatantly lying that their business does not rely solely on clickbait [4]

[0] https://imgur.com/gallery/r8VBF [1] https://imgur.com/gallery/7Ah53 [2] http://gawker.com/5922038/remix-everything-buzzfeed-and-the-...

[3] http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/07/buzzfeed-helped-spread-...

[4] http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/why-buzzfeed-doesnt-do-clic...

While you, an informed HN reader, would not take BF seriously, unfortunately very many people do.

[nadams]

I used buzzfeed as a quick popular example - but Yahoo news is just as bad. I recall a "scientific study" where there was a link between plastic and issues with fetuses. The yahoo news article proclaimed that there was a link, the actual science study said while there may have been related incidents but there was no positive link between the 2.

I saw many comments on facebook from pregnant mothers claiming that they threw away all plastic in their house. If they bothered to actually read the official study - they would know that was not necessary. I understand they wanted to be careful - but plastic and materials made of plastic have been around for many many years. Unless they were burning plastic or using plastic exclusively - judging from years of exposure I think there are more important household hazards than that.

Again - I'm more likely to believe a wikipedia article with cited sources than a bias site or news report. But yet when you are taught in class - that freewebs site that is made by some random guy is more of a reliable site than a site that can be updated and monitored by people around the world. That's my problem and point. For academia we shouldn't say "you can't use wikipedia but any other site is ok" - but rather "find N articles that support this fact or opinion - where wikipedia is ok to include as a supporting article".

[DanBC]

You read wikipedia to get a broad understanding; you then follow the cites and check that they say what wikipedia claims they say then you use those cites, not wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Academic_use

http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=i...

"Don't use wikipedia as a source" is very different from "use buzzfeed as a source".

EDIT:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia

> As with any source, especially one of unknown authorship, you should be wary and independently verify the accuracy of Wikipedia information if possible. For many purposes, but particularly in academia, Wikipedia may not be an acceptable source;[1] indeed, some professors and teachers may reject Wikipedia-sourced material completely.[2] This is especially true when it is used without corroboration. However, much of the content on Wikipedia is itself referenced, so an alternative is to cite the reliable source rather than the article itself.

> We advise special caution when using Wikipedia as a source for research projects. Normal academic usage of Wikipedia and other encyclopedias is for getting the general facts of a problem and to gather keywords, references and bibliographical pointers, but not as a source in itself. Remember that Wikipedia is a wiki, which means that anyone in the world can edit an article, deleting accurate information or adding false information, which the reader may not recognize.