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guest_
· 5 years ago
· FIRST
The statement shows the problem. “It’s gotten a lot more credible.” On one plate, a sandwich. On the other, a stew with lots of delicious ingredients- but also garbage mixed in. The sandwich is more appealing. However- if the sandwich rots, and wild animals pick at it and dedicate on it until there is almost no sandwich left- the stew becomes more appealing. That isn’t necessarily a credit to the stew but an indictment of the sad state of the sandwich.
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Edited 5 years ago
guest_
· 5 years ago
The point of doing research is learning how to pick out the garbage. It’s learning to not just take something at face value but to cross reference it and arrive at a conclusion based on what you’ve discovered. Wikipedia is FULL of great articles that are well researched and written. By someone else. At SOME point you will have to rely on the facts of others. When researching the surface of mars you either have to use NASA data or go to mars. The latter is impractical.
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Edited 5 years ago
guest_
· 5 years ago
But this is the difference between first hand and other types of sources. Reporting based on someone else’s findings based on someone else’s findings based on someone else’s findings. You’re far removed from the source. Citations are great- but if they are unverified they mean nothing, they could be made up or misquoted or misunderstood.
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guest_
· 5 years ago
There was recently a post from a satirical news writer on here I commented on. The guy wrote a joke news piece. Sean Hannity ran the story. The current president quoted statistics and facts from the made up story in multiple speeches. Other news outlets ran it too- the president is saying it, big name “journalists” were saying it. Other news was citing them and then other news citing those outlets citing the President and Hannity. In 2019 we can rely on the citations of others less than ever. There aren’t a lot of reputable and reliable sources for second or third party information anymore.
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guest_
· 5 years ago
Hannity and the president could have likely stopped the whole thing in its tracks had they done some research and not just taken some “crowd sourced” information at face value. So could the rest of the folks in the chain. So whoopty doo that Wikipedia has become better. I love Wikipedia. I also constantly find errors and omissions in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is convenient for research because all you likely want to know is in one place all buttoned up. Just like for many all they need to know is with Sean Hannity. If you rely on “one stop shopping” for information then you not only risk your own integrity- but you risk feeding into a cycle of ignorance and misinformation.
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Edited 5 years ago
lucky11
· 5 years ago
I never understood this. Wikipedia requires sources for everything. When a page is finally vetted only sourced material is accepted. Granted anyone can edit a page but the sources down at the bottom? No one is going to edit those and they're so handy. They let you where exactly where to look for more and if you decide to use it the source is all laid out for you. If you're really lazy instead of using the Wikipedia page you can just use the already laid out source at the bottom of the article.
bethorien
· 5 years ago
not only that, chances are if someone does incorrectly edit a wikipedia page itll be fixed within the hour
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guest_
· 5 years ago
One could also skip years of classes simply by reading the material, and one could skip reading the material at all simply by having it in a database and just asking the question you need to know at a given moment. It isn’t quite the same though. As is the case with showing work in math- it isn’t simply having the right answer or being able to copy down the proof of a correct answer from someone else. Education is a journey not a destination.
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