Burstaholic
Paul Cantrellomg, THIS
I was bordering on apoplectic when I first heard about K-12 teachers forbidding students from using Wikipedia but then teaching them to use LLMs.
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https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hi-its-me-wikipedia-and-i-am-ready-for-your-apology
I recently found myself comparing the articles about the Louisiana Purchase on Britannica (that flag-bearer of acceptability in K-12 education) and Wikipedia (still forbidden in many schools). It wasâŚilluminating.
The Britannica is better written. It flows well. It is approachable. It proceeds from broad overview to coherent detail in a way that helps meet the reader where theyâre at. The professional editorial oversight shows.
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The Wikipedia article is pretty good, but itâs overwhelming. It flows poorly. It lurches from big picture to over-specific details in a way that makes it hard to approach the article if you donât already know the material.
The cacophony of voices behind it, though well-synthesized, still shows.
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The Wikipedia article also includes this sentence in its opening paragraph:
âHowever, France only controlled a small fraction of this area, most of which was inhabited by Native Americans; effectively, for the majority of the area, the United States bought the preemptive right to obtain Indian lands by treaty or by conquest, to the exclusion of other colonial powers.â
Britannica has nothing like that. It discusses the Louisiana Purchase without a single mention that the indigenous people of North America even exist.
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The most Britannica manages to mention of what was actually in that land is this:
âMuch of the territory turned out to contain rich mineral resources, productive soil, valuable grazing land, forests, and wildlife resources of inestimable value.â
Not a single mention, AFAICT, of the fact that there were already people there.
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I remember being extremely confused about this as a kid when I first heard about the Louisiana Purchase. How could the US âpurchaseâ land that nobody from the nation had even explored? Didnât the people who live there own it? Huh?!?
Wikipedia, for all its messiness, answered Young Paulâs question. Britannica buried it.
But guess which one teachers are â˘still⢠trying to keep out of education.
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One muddle-headed way of looking at this is âoooooo Wikipedia is wooooke blah blah.â
The better way of looking at it is that Wikipedia lets people jump in and say âWhat?! No, you are totally missing something important!â It actually â˘does⢠the thing the radical centrists (falsely) claim they want: it opens itself to different perspectives.
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As humans, we â˘all⢠live our lives with our heads up our butts â including but not limited to the Britannica writers. If weâre lucky, someone will help us see what weâre missing. If weâre wise, we listen. At its best, thatâs what Wikipedia can do â and in public, at scale, for everyone.
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I remember years ago seeing a study that diligently compared the factual accuracy of Britannica vs Wikipedia for a few select articles (will update this post w/link if I find it).
They found a similar rate of factual errors. The short of it: Wikipedia is chaotic and messy, but Britannica often had missing or out-of-date information. Wikipedia had higher noise, but also a higher correction rate. Factuality came out about a wash.
[UPDATE] I think it was this study: https://www.nature.com/articles/438900a
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Internet encyclopaedias go head to head - Nature
Jimmy Wales' Wikipedia comes close to Britannica in terms of the accuracy of its science entries, a Nature investigation finds. UPDATE: see details of how the data were collected for this article in the supplementary information . UPDATE 2 (28 March 2006). The results reported in this news story and their interpretation have been disputed by Encyclopaedia Britannica . Nature responded to these objections .
Wikipedia has â˘numerous⢠problems, but it belongs in education.
And right now, per the McSweeneyâs OP, itâs a lifeboat of humanity in a sea of slop.
For reference, snapshots of the two articles concerned at the time of this writing:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250923124231/https://www.britannica.com/event/Louisiana-Purchase
https://web.archive.org/web/20250917014942/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Purchase
/end
Louisiana Purchase | Definition, Date, Cost, History, Map, States, Significance, & Facts | Britannica
Louisiana Purchase, western half of the Mississippi River basin purchased in 1803 from France by the United States. The purchase doubled the size of the United States, greatly strengthened the country materially and strategically, and provided a powerful impetus to westward expansion.
Kid Mania@inthehands
"Britannica has nothing like that. It discusses the Louisiana Purchase without a single mention that the indigenous people of North America even exist."
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Court Cantrell does not comply@inthehands I used both Wikipedia & Britannica (as well as a plethora of other secondary sources) in research for my philosophy book (Appetite for Antithesis, pub. 03/2025). Wikipedia was, by far, the more helpful as far as amount of factual information, number of listed sources, density of subject matter, and readability. It wasn't perfect (nothing ever is), but it got me over more research hurdles than I care to remember! đ
I've been a financial donor to Wikipedia for years. SO VERY WORTH IT.
Sensible Crone@courtcan @inthehands me too!!!! Wikipedia is invaluable.
Still Nmyownworld@inthehands When Wikipedia launched it was vilified by educators, when the problem was using a page as a reference. A Wikipedia page's References can be a treasure of leads to more information.
I like when there's a lot on a Wikipedia page, as long as there is also an ELI5 opening paragraph, a broad overview of the topic. Sometimes, that's all I want. Sometimes I want to do a deep dive into a topic. I appreciate that Wikipedia is a free to use portal for learning. I donate to them when I can.
Avi Rappoport (avirr)@inthehands Also, Wikipedia has gotten better over the years
Irenes (many)@inthehands very thoughtful comparison. thanks for that!
lj¡rk@inthehands There's only one reason why not to rely on WP in a scholarly context: it's not an academic source with no attributable author. But that only matters for actual papers or research. And even there: Use it, but don't cite WP.
Shaun McDonald@inthehands I know 2 council areas that block Wikipedia for school pupils as it can be user edited and inaccurate.
@smsm1
Just wait until they find out about what goes into (1) the rest of the internet (2) LLMs and (3) school textbooks.
Just wait until they find out about what goes into (1) the rest of the internet (2) LLMs and (3) school textbooks.
@inthehands This is going in my current handwritten notebook of collected quotes:
"As humans, we â˘all⢠live our lives with our heads up our butts.... If weâre lucky, someone will help us see what weâre missing. If weâre wise, we listen."
--Paul Cantrell,
Mastodon,
30 Oct 2025
@courtcan
I am honored!
I am honored!
@inthehands âşď¸âşď¸âşď¸
Alanna đłď¸âđđłď¸ââ§ď¸@inthehands The name "EncyclopĂŚdia Britannica" alone should indicate that colonial bias is ever present. Its articles on Irish based topics are, I think the most appropriate word is, "fascinating".
Ian K. Rogers ikr?âರ_ಠ@kelpana @inthehands Similarly its descriptions of the Jacobite Uprising and the Highland Clearances are ... interesting.
your auntifa liza đľđˇ đŚ đŚŚtime to re-read Jorge Luis Borgesâ short story, Tlon Uqbar Orbis Tertius.
itâs the story of a man who "discovers" a new country by reading a lost volume of The Anglo-American Cyclopaedia; a "fascimile" of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Anglo-American Cyclopaedia https://www.borges.pitt.edu/i/anglo-american-cyclopaedia
i was never able to sit in one of his classes but sneaked out of my high school to shake his hand on his last day as a visiting professor at University of Puerto Rico.
Ed@inthehands There is this sidebar: https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-the-Louisiana-Purchase-affect-Native-American-peoples
Here is the Web Archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250214185216/https://www.britannica.com/question/How-did-the-Louisiana-Purchase-affect-Native-American-peoples
@EdBruce
Wow.
Itâs somehow even more damning that they actually wrote this â theyâre aware of the problem!! â and not only failed to integrate into the main article text, but AFAICT did not even â˘link⢠to it from the main article. It doesnât even show up if you click âSee all related content.â
peter honeyman@inthehands ugh that âonlyâ is misplaced and i am fighting the urge to go correct it
Rachael L@inthehands We finally gave our tween access to a general purpose not locked down computer. I showed her wikipedia and how it links articles together and also the citation system worked. All while explaining it is maintained by people around the world largely for free. She was pretty excited by it and especially citations and links! So much kid oriented tech stuff is sandboxed and "guided", even educational stuff.
Jargoggles@r343l @inthehands
This is such a great idea. Even just with a toddler, putting a priority on pointing kids to something instead of away is such a powerful mindset.
This is such a great idea. Even just with a toddler, putting a priority on pointing kids to something instead of away is such a powerful mindset.
Thinkaholic is đ¸ antifa@inthehands I finished my BA in History in '21 (only 34 years after I began, but who's counting) and in the capstone class our professor asked how many people considered Wikipedia useful in research. Most of the class said no, and he devoted a section of the class to teaching us how to use Wikipedia effectively (spoiler: check the citations, read the linked articles, check their citations, etc.) for scholarly research. We should be teaching that in middle school.
Also, fuck LLMs.
NickyđŚ¨âď¸@pooserville @inthehands i went back in â09 (classics) and we were told that wikipedia was not an acceptable citation reference but to search through the citations on each page to find the original source. Funny how things change. I couldnât believe people put Wikipedia in their bibliographies. It has value as a reference tool not as a primary source.
ShadSterling@skoombidoombis @pooserville @inthehands this is the way I learned it, and I think itâs the right approach.
This is also how I came to think that Wikipedia is not the source of knowledge, it is the destination
(Seems even more so now that so much else is overrun with slop)
Panicky_Patzer@pooserville @inthehands This is basically how I teach my high-schoolers. I also refuse to teach them how to use LLMs.
Ray McCarthy@inthehands
It could have been worse. The teachers could have been using the LLM-AI edited one that's ripped off from Wikipedia, where the LLM-AI owner is an actual Neo-Nazi.
Wikipedia, like printed versions is only a starting point for research.
Sune AukenHard agree.
lemgandi@inthehands Wow, the quote at the top is from a real source. That aged well .
Solitha@inthehands I think they need to be clear that *using* Wikipedia is fine, but it should never be a *citation*.
Wikipedia is a collation of sources, all of which are fair game.
@solitha
Even more fundamentally â because genuine care about citations is perfunctory or nonexistent in practice until college, or â˘maybe⢠a very fastidious high school class â Wikipedia can be a darned good as a starting point, or for a quick âusually not too wrongâ answer.
Student do need to learn that you canât take Wikipedia or any other source (primary or secondary) as complete truth. They also need to learn how to work with provisional knowledge: âLook, not 100% confident, but this Wikipedia article that challenges what I thought means itâs â˘probably⢠me thatâs wrong.â
@inthehands I tell my students that Wikipedia is a great starting point to familiarize themselves with a topic, but should not be used for citing as a source in a research paper. Instead, I expect them to follow up with Wikipedia's sources to verify the information themselves because encyclopedias are fraught with inaccuracies, and they don't qualify as a credible source in an academic research paper. (Side note: I've been a monthly Wikipedia donor for years.)
Mike would rather be running!@inthehands Well written thread!
bmoreinis=>journa.host@inthehands @helianthropy On a school IT directorâs email lists, one reported that they had blocked Wikipedia for students because one of the Wikipedia pages had material that could be considered pornographic. Fortunately, the others on the list all told him that was ridiculous.
@inthehands I very distinctly remember Wikipedia being the enemy of research in my middle school/high school days. I didn't understand it back then, either.