Reliability of Wikipedia Information Questionable

7th March 2007

Ryan Jordan, a 24-year old college student from Kentucky used the nickname Essjay on Wikipedia. In his profile he posed as professor of religion at a private university and in this capacity he edited articles and was given the authority to arbitrate disputes between authors and remove site vandalism.

When he was found out, Ryan Jordan admitted that he used books like Catholicism for Dummies as a reference for his writings!

Sites such as Wikipedia have always been susceptible to vandalism and the spread of false information by individuals or groups with a vested interest. This problem has been brought into the spotlight by the case of Mr Jordan, who could be one of many other supposed “authority” writers on the popular site, who actually have no credibility whatsoever.

Tags: wikipedia

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5 Responses to “Reliability of Wikipedia Information Questionable”

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Internet Esquire : 8 March 2007 at 6:29 pm

Wikipedia has millions of contributors, and the fact that one of Wikipedia’s most trusted editors is a fraud, while embarrassing, does not make Wikipedia any less reliable than The New Yorker which also bought into the fraud. I’m curious why people keep ignoring that. See – http://blog.xodp.org/2007/03/putting-essjays-fraud-into-perspective.html -.
AccuraCast : 8 March 2007 at 6:36 pm

The very nature of a site like Wikipedia makes it much easier for people to spread the false news.

While Wikipedia is no more at fault than any other newspaper whose reporters tell lies, it gets much more visibility online due to its high search rankings, which is why it’s important for visitors to take information posted on there with a pinch of salt.
Premasagar : 15 January 2008 at 12:36 pm

Mistakes on Wikipedia are correctable within seconds, due to the sheer mass of users involved. Compare that to mistaken reporting in mainstream media and traditional encyclopaedias…

Discussion on social networks & blogs

University Update : 7 March 2007 at 1:07 pm

Reliability of Wikipedia Information Questionable…

…
Should Wikipedia Introduce Flagged Revisions? | AccuraCast Search Daily News : 26 January 2009 at 6:44 pm

[...] False information could have been prevented from appearing by locking certain articles to prevent edits, or by preventing unknown editors from editing. But, as Cade Metz points out, both these options are contrary to the principles on which Wikipedia is based. [...]

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