7 Answers

How do we know Penn State is correct? : )

I'd be curious as to who "made" this report !!!

My question is, who's right about anything?   Is it Wikipedia, is it Penn State, or is it all of us, here on akaQA?  Who would you pick?    LOL!!!!

I've heard that it gets about an 80% accuracy rating all around with some topics being closer to 95% and others as low as 75%....I do know there are school systems (public) that don't allow students to refer to Wikepedia unless they find the exact information in a dictionary or encyclopedia.  Wikepedia is an Open access site- so information comes from experts and non-experts alike.

Penn State's Marcia W. DiStaso, and it's often next to impossible to get them corrected. We've known that Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales and PR people don't hit it off. But these findings are disturbing news, indeed, for online research.

Wikipedia says its standard response time for making corrections is between two and five days. Yet Professor DiStaso reports that "When respondents attempted to engage editors through Wikipedia's 'Talk' pages to request corrections of facts in entries, 40 percent said it took 'days' to receive a response, 12 percent indicated 'weeks,' while 24 percent never received any type of response."

wikipedia is a good tool but could be open to abuse,any one can go on there and put information on to any topic without any knowledge of the topic.like daren1 i would be curious to know conducted this report.also to do a report on the entire contents is a mammoth task and must have taken an age to complete.

Wikipedia entries full of factual errors, says researcher
IANS Apr 18, 2012, 10.39PM IST

Tags:
Word of Mouth Marketing Association|Wikipedia|Penn State University|DiStaso
WASHINGTON: Sixty per cent of Wikipedia articles about companies contain factual errors, according to a new research, which warned people not to rely on the website for accurate and balanced information.

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"It does not surprise me that so many Wikipedia entries contain factual errors," said Marcia W DiStaso, assistant professor of public relations at Penn State University, who conducted the research.

"A high amount of factual errors doesn't work for anyone, especially the public, which relies on Wikipedia for accurate, balanced information," says DiStaso.

DiStaso surveyed 1,284 professionals from Public Relations Society of America, the International Association of Business Communicators, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, the Institute for Public Relations and the National Investor Relations Institute to assess their working relationship with Wikipedia, the Public Relations Journal reports.

Results of the survey indicate a gap exists between public relations professionals and Wikipedia concerning the proper protocol for editing entries, according to a Penn statement.

When respondents attempted to engage editors through Wikipedia's "Talk" pages to request corrections of facts in entries, 40 percent said it took "days" to receive a response, 12 percent indicated "weeks," while 24 percent never received any type of response.

According to Wikipedia, its standard response time to requests for corrections is between two and five days.

Only 35 per cent of respondents were able to engage with Wikipedia, either by using its "Talk" pages to converse with editors or through direct editing of a client's entry.

Respondents indicated this figure is low partly because some fear media backlash over making edits to clients' entries. Respondents also expressed a certain level of uncertainty regarding how to properly edit Wikipedia entries.

Of those who were familiar with the process of editing Wikipedia entries, 23 percent said making changes was "near impossible". Twenty-nine percent said their interactions with Wikipedia editors were "never productive".

"What is surprising, however, is that 25 per cent of survey respondents indicated they are not familiar with the Wikipedia articles for their company or clients. At some point most, if not all, companies will determine they need to change something in their Wikipedia entries," said DiStaso.

Without clear, consistent rules from Wikipedia regarding how factual corrections can be made, this will be a very difficult learning process for public relations professionals.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-18/internet/31360959_1_wikipedia-entries-wikipedia-articles-editing