Saturday, September 27, 2008

Hey, What About Wikipedia?

50 of the Most Dependable Web Resources for University Students, (minus one).

HT: Craig Newmark

If I had to guess whether Wikipedia or the median refereed journal article on economics was more likely to be true, after a not so long think I would opt for Wikipedia.

~Tyler Cowen

7 Comments:

At 9/27/2008 8:39 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This list is a joke.

Wikipedia is the single best starting point resource on the web, but if that's your only stop, you're a fool. I don't know why academics are fighting this so hard.

 
At 9/27/2008 10:33 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Compared to the Dept. of Labour or the Congressional Budget Office, Wiki is a quick & dirty resource with a left of centre bias (ie. Jimmy Carter article). I have come across various articles with outdated statistics.

Wiki is useful due to wide variety of material but it is not the word of God.

 
At 9/27/2008 12:02 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

Dr. Perry,

Off topic, but...

I would be interested in any comments you might have on this latest report, especially as it relates to:

Adjusted Monetary Base
Commercial Paper
Reserve Bank Credit and Federal Reserve Holdings of U.S. Treasury Securities
Total Borrowings from Federal Reserve Banks

Thanks,
SBVOR

 
At 9/27/2008 12:09 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

P.S.) Other formats for the same data can be found here.

 
At 9/27/2008 4:35 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Scholarpedia - Scholars around the world contributed to this free encyclopedia. The site looks almost exactly like Wikipedia, but there is a difference between the two: Scholarpedia can be cited in research papers"

I think we have our answer. This list was intended to serve students who need reference material that can be cited.

 
At 9/27/2008 5:06 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wikipedia is a JOKE...much of it is entered propaganda and it also has a far left bias

 
At 9/27/2008 6:43 PM, Blogger like such as said...

Scholarpedia looks interesting but I randomly entered about 10 different topics (some broad, some narrow), and most of them came back with nothing. Tried the same exercise on wikipedia and, lo and behold, it actually gave me some information.

As "thomasblair" said, Wikipedia is by far the best starting point website, and that's because it's "encyclopedic." It offers practically everything that society collectively knows, and gives one a great foundation upon which to do actual research.

If you want to be able to cite your sources, then Wikipedia may not serve that purpose, but scholarpedia certainly doesn't replace wikipedia just because it offers 10% of the information a lot more convincingly.

 

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