Sunday, January 10, 2016

#Wikipedia - a 20% error rate

The one thing that makes Wikipedia strong are its wiki links. When they work they are great.. when they work they are.

The article on the Spearman Medal is a case in point. This medal is conferred by the British Psychological Society to psychologists. There were 19 links and two were wrong. One link was to a soccer and one to a football player. The award is conferred since 1965 so there ought to be quite a number of red links

With two sportsmen attributed to winning the Spearman Medal there was an error rate of 20%. With all the red links it is easy to be more informative using Wikidata. With such statistics it is obvious to make the argument that replacing links with links through Wikidata will enhance quality in the English Wikipedia.

This is unlikely to happen. Wikipedians seem to be more concerned in finding fault elsewhere than considering the quality of their own project. Particularly when "outsiders" point them to the error in their ways. It is psychology in action. 
Thanks,
      GerardM

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