Peter Organisciak
historic drystone sheep dykeIt's funny that they told me not to trust wikipedia in high school when at this point it's the only link in the first page of google results that was written by humans intending to convey information
Karl Higley@hannah exactly that property of wikipedia is why the language models that power search are now trained on it, because it’s so hard to find anything else written to intentionally convey information…you know, with search
Ember is so tired of people. 
@karlhigley @hannah trained on it*
*And the entire rest of the internet
John Gordon
GunChleoc
WandaLee58@hannah They still do 😭😭😭 and I have to endure it..
jz.tuskSo we're still trusting Google?
I don't have a great alternative, although I am transitioning to DDG. But I've jettisoned most of my trust in Google.
Hugh Young-Bish
Malfunction54@hannah I agree! I'll never understand the "don't use wikipedia!" rhetoric. It is a missed opportunity in learning how to research and vet sources.
wonkothesane@hannah Yep: they should also teach not to trust Google.
Charles J Gervasi ⚡🛡️🥥@hannah It weird to imagine what high school would have been like with Wikipedia.
moondog548@hannah the advice wasn't "don't trust Wikipedia" it was "don't *cite* wikipedia or use it as your only source."
For the same reasons as encyclopedias.
Alaric@moondog548 @hannah when I was a kid sometimes the encyclopaedia was the beginning and the end 😞
Ferles 
@hannah oh god, wikipedia did not exist when I was in high school. I was out of college before it launched.
Not that I am old; I am just extremely precocious, yeah that's right
Alex@hannah: and the only one that sites its sources
Sibrosan"It's funny that they told me not to trust wikipedia"
And they were right, if they meant that you should never simply assume, as some high school students might, that whatever you read on Wikipedia is correct.
Wikipedia is a lot more trustworthy than it used to be, just because it's grown so much that many more people are combing through it to root out errors, but also because they've tightened the rules about who can edit controversial subjects.
Cegorach@hannah back then it probably was too
but for the internet being relatively empty still
they just expected you to use non-internet sources.
Like worst case some printed encyclopedia, but mostly a book that's about that singular topic.
And for stuff that isn't outdated too fast, that still kinda works. It's just not worth the effort in many cases.
Efi (nap pet) 🦊💤@hannah the corollary is: trust nothing
crafti
Bill Oates@hannah I think the bibliography at the bottom of the page is often the most useful. Wikipedia is a great tool if you use it with caution and common sense.
levampyre@hannah This! ☝️
Ruth Mottram@hannah I have also gone from warning my students away from wikipedia, to recommending it to my kids as a mostly reliable source of information...
CYBER 
katze@hannah There's this one person in my class constantly trying to use chatgpt for everything and lmao the face of the math teacher when she said "But chatgpt said..."
She tries to use chatgpt as a serious source in general and it's fucking annoying, at least it's often funny when she spouts absolute nonsense thinking it's true
She tries to use chatgpt as a serious source in general and it's fucking annoying, at least it's often funny when she spouts absolute nonsense thinking it's true
Ian Douglas Scott@hannah Wikipedia is by far the most reliable academic source most people will ever read, for better or worse.
Peer reviewed academic sources aren't very accessible (both cost, and knowing where to find them). And a random peer reviewed paper may still provide a worse perspective than a good Wikipedia article.
Jes Moved to @
From Okesska With Love@hannah it's a low bar when reddit is at least a bit valuable for the same reason
Rain 
@hannah i love these people because you can always tell they fundamentally do not understand how to use Wikipedia's references properly
Leonardo Ferreira Fontenelle@hannah when I was a kid there was no Wikipedia (nor commercial Internet). Then there was Wikipedia, and people said it was not trustworthy. (Oh the irony of Wikipedia being trustworthy because it knows it is not.) Nowadays I've seen primary school teachers tell their students to just Google it, without any training on how to find trustworthy information online
M.O.M.O.@hannah As long as you don’t/didn’t speak Scots
Neil E. Hodges@hannah It was a different time back then. 🫠
stefan@hannah I'd love to put that on a postcard for @wikimediaDE O.O
Wikimedia Deutschland
Patashu (Dragon Style!)I hate that this is our reality now
Catherine BerryAt some point we will rediscover the utility of librarians.
@hannah the advice is still valid. There are too many people more interested in white-washing history, obfuscating events and straight-out lying about historical events like the holocaust to trust wiki. Crowdsourcing has its strengths, don’t get me wrong, but peer-reviewed curation isn’t one of them.
John Dowling, Jr.
SK@hannah fyi i quoted this on a work chat and a colleague said it was fantastic and was stealing it, and our manager "liked" it
xs4me2Education is dangerous, that is why…
Pteryx the Puzzle Secretary@hannah I miss the days when you could find a lot more educational content on the Net than just Wikipedia.
Heck, before LLMs left their droppings everywhere, there was already a problem in the 2010s that people began to just copy-paste parts of Wikipedia articles onto other websites instead of providing original insights or even different citations...
LeRoc@hannah I was a Wikipedia editor for a long time. It has always been more trustworthy than people give it credit for.
Brandon Haber
FeralRobots@hannah
I remember how 10-15 yrs ago folks were predicting the collapse of Wikipedia because of the 'unreliability' of its info. & it's true, Wikipedia is extremely imperfect & frequently gamed. But it's as transparent as it's feasible to make such a thing. One can find & show its biases.
Imperfect, but still so much better than the alternatives that it's tragic.
I remember how 10-15 yrs ago folks were predicting the collapse of Wikipedia because of the 'unreliability' of its info. & it's true, Wikipedia is extremely imperfect & frequently gamed. But it's as transparent as it's feasible to make such a thing. One can find & show its biases.
Imperfect, but still so much better than the alternatives that it's tragic.
Alias Messier@hannah The majority of college students I work with today have been told NOT to use Wikipedia (and a lot of them use it anyway). I’ve been happily sharing this short video (via Stanford’s COR) as a way to move that conversation: https://youtu.be/ZzcjS1aDojA?si=g14ycqbS967lcXiP The feeling that they’re finally getting to something intuitively more true/correct than “don’t” can be pretty liberating!
How to Use Wikipedia Wisely
pancake 
@hannah the 10yo kids from my daughter’s class modify pages to make fun of their teacher. So well. Better not trust anything and learn to investigate.
Saagar Jha
Peter Moleman@hannah The intention of Wikipedia is ok, and many (most?) articles are trustworthy, but some are not at all. Only if you are an expert in the relevant field you can make the necessary distinction. If the information is really important for you, you may want to consult an expert, eg concerning health issues etc. (sorry if you alreeady know this)