Expert, Texpert, Wiki Laughs At
Expert, Texpert, The Technoskeptic Wiki Laughs at You destinations like Twitter, LinkedIn, and Ebay. Chil- by Dan Rosenberg dren reflexively turn to Wikipedia when they re- search their school papers, eschewing traditional he World Book Encyclopedia boasts that encyclopedias. “outstanding scholars and specialists” from While it’s relatively harmless for a student to use major academic fields plan and evaluate its T Wikipedia to source a term paper, it raises eyebrows articles. when professionals use the site to find information, In contrast, World Book’s online competitor, particularly considering the site’s own declaration Wikipedia, cautions that some of its articles “are ad- that some of its articles are “rubbish.” One recent mittedly complete rubbish,” and advises users not to study, for instance, found that doctors frequently rely rely on Wikipedia to make critical decisions because on Wikipedia when researching diseases and medi- some articles contain errors. “We do not expect you cations. to trust us,” it warns. “Wikipedia is used by a very large number of… Yet increasingly, it appears people do trust Wiki- health care professionals as the first source of in- pedia. According to Alexa Web Analytics, which formation related to a particular disease or even a tracks Internet use, Wikipedia is the seventh-most particular medicine,” said Murray Aitken, executive visited web site, well ahead of popular director of the IMS Institute for Health Informatics, in a 2014 video statement that accompanied an IMS report on how doctors and patients use social me- dia. The report, titled, “Engaging Patients Through Social Media,” found that nearly 50 percent of U.S.
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