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Several US universities ban Wikipedia as primary source

Thursday, March 22, 2007

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Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Many professors at universities throughout the United States have recently adopted policies prohibiting Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, from being used as a primary source in reports.

Neil Walters, a history professor at Middlebury College claims that vandalism of Wikipedia was used as a source in reports submitted to him.

Walters' department adopted a policy banning the use of Wikipedia as a primary source, while allowing it to be used for background information. Individual professors at other schools, including UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania, have taken up this policy.

Wikipedia contributors regularly review the articles, but with the English version of the site recently reaching 1 million articles, they can rarely take time to protect every entry against subtle vandalism.

Wikipedia's guidelines, and the statements of its founder, Jimmy Wales, have advised against using Wikipedia or other encyclopedias as a primary source.

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  This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.
Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.


 

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