Reference books

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jpahk
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Re: Reference books

Post by jpahk »

bpmod wrote:The people who wrote these articles have obviously not done more than rudimentary research. Why should I trust that any article appearing in Wikipedia was more thoroughly researched?
don't let the fallibility of wikipedia lead you to dismiss its (incredible) usefulness as a resource. for jeopardy purposes in particular, the show only asks about things that many, many people know and care about. if there were factual errors on wikipedia on a subject like the protagonist's name in slaughterhouse-five or the capital of the philippines, they would get corrected very quickly. there is never going to be a jeopardy question that asks you how many members are on the hamilton school board, or how old was such-and-such actress when she began acting.
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Re: Reference books

Post by dhkendall »

bpmod wrote:For instance (and I don't have time right now to look up those examples, although one is very easy to find), I was reading about an actress the other day. Under the years active, it gave a beginning year of when she was about 13. Then in the body of the article, it said she had been acting since she was two and it cited a particular movie. Upon clicking that movie's link, that article said that that particular actress appeared in that production as an infant. Infant and two years of age are not the same. Similarly 2 and 13 are not synonymous.
And if I came across that, it'd be impetus for me to do more research, to find out which is right! More research is ALWAYS good.

(Even more trusted information sources can be wrong - I've stopped watching TV news because invariably I'd find a report that has wrong information in it (not biased information (I've come to expect that), incorrect information - like I recall one day where they mentioned what will be open on an upcoming holiday, and I knew for a fact one of the things on their list was wrong, leading me to question the whole list). Starting to notice it in my chosen newspaper too, making me wonder how on earth I'm going to know about the news now if I can't find a source I can rely on ...
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Volante
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Re: Reference books

Post by Volante »

dhkendall wrote:... Starting to notice it in my chosen newspaper too, making me wonder how on earth I'm going to know about the news now if I can't find a source I can rely on ...
Well, when you make the news, you can be sure the facts are right! :D
The best thing that Neil Armstrong ever did, was to let us all imagine we were him.
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dhkendall
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Re: Reference books

Post by dhkendall »

Volante wrote:
dhkendall wrote:... Starting to notice it in my chosen newspaper too, making me wonder how on earth I'm going to know about the news now if I can't find a source I can rely on ...
Well, when you make the news, you can be sure the facts are right! :D
You'd think so, but no. I have been interviewed for the paper once (well, more than once, but using this example), and what got printed wasn't quite the meaning I meant.

Other instances that I have first hand knowledge of:
  • My name was spelled wrong in the paper (a different time) ... and it was a fake name! (Took a picture of me in a character I was playing, and wanted to caption the picture with my character's name. I gave it to them, and watched the photographer write it down, in writing that looked very similar to mine actually (ie messy). Upon printing, the "L" turned into a "C".)
  • My mom and sister got into a car accident once (this must be about 25 years ago at least now, both of them were OK, but the car's wreckage made for a sensational picture. The local paper that has always, since it started, been more concerned with sensationalism than substance, immediately dispatched a photographer. My mom was a bit miffed about this, and requested that at least she not appear on the front page. Well, guess what picture was on apge 1 the next day?
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Re: Reference books

Post by bpmod »

jpahk wrote:
bpmod wrote:The people who wrote these articles have obviously not done more than rudimentary research. Why should I trust that any article appearing in Wikipedia was more thoroughly researched?
don't let the fallibility of wikipedia lead you to dismiss its (incredible) usefulness as a resource. for jeopardy purposes in particular, the show only asks about things that many, many people know and care about. if there were factual errors on wikipedia on a subject like the protagonist's name in slaughterhouse-five or the capital of the philippines, they would get corrected very quickly. there is never going to be a jeopardy question that asks you how many members are on the hamilton school board, or how old was such-and-such actress when she began acting.
And, of course, they are not going to ask about b-sides or time signatures either. My point was that if you only use Wikipedia to learn "what everybody already knows", or even "what Jeopardy! might ask", there are much better resourses than Wikipedia.

Brian
...but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.

If I had 50 cents for every math question I got right, I'd have $6.30 by now.
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Re: Reference books

Post by whoisalexjacob »

bpmod wrote:
jpahk wrote:
bpmod wrote:The people who wrote these articles have obviously not done more than rudimentary research. Why should I trust that any article appearing in Wikipedia was more thoroughly researched?
don't let the fallibility of wikipedia lead you to dismiss its (incredible) usefulness as a resource. for jeopardy purposes in particular, the show only asks about things that many, many people know and care about. if there were factual errors on wikipedia on a subject like the protagonist's name in slaughterhouse-five or the capital of the philippines, they would get corrected very quickly. there is never going to be a jeopardy question that asks you how many members are on the hamilton school board, or how old was such-and-such actress when she began acting.
And, of course, they are not going to ask about b-sides or time signatures either. My point was that if you only use Wikipedia to learn "what everybody already knows", or even "what Jeopardy! might ask", there are much better resourses than Wikipedia.

Brian
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Re: Reference books

Post by bpmod »

omgwheelhouse wrote: I'll bite, what are they?
Sorry. I should have said "much more accurate". I put a link in my post to a page that has (at least) two glaring errors. One about a popular record's b-side and one about time signatures.

If you can't trust some of what you might "learn" on Wikipedia, who is to say what you can trust? My opinion is that trying to decide what you can trust and what you can't is harder than finding a more trustworthy resource.

Brian
...but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.

If I had 50 cents for every math question I got right, I'd have $6.30 by now.
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dhkendall
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Re: Reference books

Post by dhkendall »

bpmod wrote:If you can't trust some of what you might "learn" on Wikipedia, who is to say what you can trust? My opinion is that trying to decide what you can trust and what you can't is harder than finding a more trustworthy resource.

Brian
I posted earlier about factual errors I've found in the media, every time I watch a new channel, I keep finding them, I switch to getting my news in the newspapers, I find them. I resort to online news, I find them quicker.

Maybe I should stop learning about the news altogether, since there isn't a place I've seen yet that will give me the news I want 100% accurately.
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Re: Reference books

Post by bpmod »

dhkendall wrote:
bpmod wrote:If you can't trust some of what you might "learn" on Wikipedia, who is to say what you can trust? My opinion is that trying to decide what you can trust and what you can't is harder than finding a more trustworthy resource.

Brian
I posted earlier about factual errors I've found in the media, every time I watch a new channel, I keep finding them, I switch to getting my news in the newspapers, I find them. I resort to online news, I find them quicker.

Maybe I should stop learning about the news altogether, since there isn't a place I've seen yet that will give me the news I want 100% accurately.
I completely agree. I have been on a one-man crusade to try to stop the Hamilton Spectator from making stuff up, but now the other local media have followed suit as well.

But long-standing topics like music theory etc. are not news, and, therefore, wouldn't be found in local news media. If you are learning stuff for Jeopardy! you should be consulting resourses that are autoritative on the given subject, not Wikipedia, which, as I've just pointed out, also makes stuff up (or at least those who write the articles do).

Brian
...but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.

If I had 50 cents for every math question I got right, I'd have $6.30 by now.
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Re: Reference books

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So how does one go about finding a source that is 100% accurate? Then, once one finds this source, how can they be sure that everything they read will be 100% accurate?
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Re: Reference books

Post by bpmod »

jeff6286 wrote:So how does one go about finding a source that is 100% accurate? Then, once one finds this source, how can they be sure that everything they read will be 100% accurate?
I honestly don't think that any source is guaranteed to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. But there is a big difference between 100% and whatever Wikipedia's accuracy rate is. (I would (very conservatively) estimate that there is at least one error (not counting spelling, grammar & punctuation -- those are much more rampant) on about 10% of Wikipedia's pages.)

Brian
...but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.

If I had 50 cents for every math question I got right, I'd have $6.30 by now.
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Volante
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Re: Reference books

Post by Volante »

bpmod wrote:
jeff6286 wrote:So how does one go about finding a source that is 100% accurate? Then, once one finds this source, how can they be sure that everything they read will be 100% accurate?
I honestly don't think that any source is guaranteed to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. But there is a big difference between 100% and whatever Wikipedia's accuracy rate is. (I would (very conservatively) estimate that there is at least one error (not counting spelling, grammar & punctuation -- those are much more rampant) on about 10% of Wikipedia's pages.)

Brian
Has this been linked to yet? https://xkcd.com/978/

On the other hand, that 'big difference' also applies to Encyclopedia Britannica.
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Re: Reference books

Post by bpmod »

Volante wrote:
bpmod wrote:
jeff6286 wrote:So how does one go about finding a source that is 100% accurate? Then, once one finds this source, how can they be sure that everything they read will be 100% accurate?
I honestly don't think that any source is guaranteed to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. But there is a big difference between 100% and whatever Wikipedia's accuracy rate is. (I would (very conservatively) estimate that there is at least one error (not counting spelling, grammar & punctuation -- those are much more rampant) on about 10% of Wikipedia's pages.)

Brian
Has this been linked to yet? https://xkcd.com/978/

On the other hand, that 'big difference' also applies to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Maybe I am just naive, but I highly doubt that Encyclopeia Britannica has that high an error rate.

Brian
...but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.

If I had 50 cents for every math question I got right, I'd have $6.30 by now.
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Re: Reference books

Post by jeff6286 »

bpmod wrote:
jeff6286 wrote:So how does one go about finding a source that is 100% accurate? Then, once one finds this source, how can they be sure that everything they read will be 100% accurate?
I honestly don't think that any source is guaranteed to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. But there is a big difference between 100% and whatever Wikipedia's accuracy rate is. (I would (very conservatively) estimate that there is at least one error (not counting spelling, grammar & punctuation -- those are much more rampant) on about 10% of Wikipedia's pages.)
Brian
I would highly doubt that your 10% figure is accurate, but of course there's no easy way for either one of us to prove the other wrong, so it doesn't really matter. I'd like to direct your attention to Joon's post at the top of this page, because he made the same argument that I was going to make here, and he made it sound quite simple and quite logical. I'm also still waiting for you to point us to a source that has the vast amount of information that wikipedia does without any errors. On the previous page, Woof mentioned that a study was done showing that on technical subjects, wikipedia's information was factually more correct than comparable selections from Encyclopedia Brittanica. I honestly don't know if there is an online equivalent of the traditional "hard copy" encyclopedias. I would suggest that one advantage of wikipedia may be that if a mistake is made in writing an article, any person who reads it could catch the mistake and have it corrected, whether it be a huge factual error, or something more simple like a mistake in spelling or grammar, or just a typographical error. If you purchase a set of encyclopedias, and find a mistake in it, you're pretty much stuck with it, as is every other person who purchased that same set, only they don't know about the error like you do.
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Volante
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Re: Reference books

Post by Volante »

bpmod wrote: Maybe I am just naive, but I highly doubt that Encyclopeia Britannica has that high an error rate.

Brian
It's not that EB is so "high", but more than Wiki is so "low" I wager

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4530930.stm
"Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopedia," reported Nature.

"But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively."
If you have a Nature subscription, the complete report can be found here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 8900a.html . I have to assume the BBC is correct in its reporting of Nature.
Some of the rebuttal material though, can be viewed here for free: http://www.nature.com/nature/britannica/index.html
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Re: Reference books

Post by TheSpiceWeasel »

bpmod wrote:
Volante wrote:
bpmod wrote:I honestly don't think that any source is guaranteed to be 100% accurate 100% of the time. But there is a big difference between 100% and whatever Wikipedia's accuracy rate is. (I would (very conservatively) estimate that there is at least one error (not counting spelling, grammar & punctuation -- those are much more rampant) on about 10% of Wikipedia's pages.)

Brian
Has this been linked to yet? https://xkcd.com/978/

On the other hand, that 'big difference' also applies to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Maybe I am just naive, but I highly doubt that Encyclopeia Britannica has that high an error rate.
Yes to the part underlined and in bold. The English language Wikipedia has over 3,900,000 articles, as of today. Your implication is that around 390,000 of those have one or more noteworthy errors. Think about that for a minute. Seems like an awfully high estimate, at least to me.
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Re: Reference books

Post by Magna »

I agree that for the things J! is likely to ask about, Wikipedia is probably fine. In particular, general reference-book type material like geography, chemistry, basic history, literature, etc. seems to be taken directly from standard sources. I would be extra careful of topics that are new, contentious, or the subject of a lot of popular speculation - like pop culture, religion, law, the supernatural, recent events, political scandals, etc. They're often poorly edited and lacking in even basic objectivity. Even when EB makes errors, they're not egregious.

I picked a couple of examples to illustrate. These are both from regular Wiki articles that have been posted and looked at many times and not flagged for correction, deletion, etc. First, the main article on Mother Teresa links to an article called "Criticism of Mother Teresa." That second article summarily repeats accusations made against her by various named and unnamed people. Only a couple of sources are cited, and it's unclear where a lot of the material comes from.

Second, the Wiki article on "Writs" (the legal variety) has a brief listing of miscellaneous kinds of writs with definitions. One of them is: "A Writ of Bodily Attachment is a writ commanding law enforcement to physically bring in a person in contempt of court. Evidently, you cannot get out of this writ just by paying the fine, the court can hold you up to 48 hours to meet with the person issuing the writ directly." Apparently this is someone's attempt to add information based on some kind of experience he had. This has been posted unchanged since 2005.
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Re: Reference books

Post by Cortana431 »

Is it important to know every or as many jeopardy clues from every jeopardy show in J Archive? In other words, do Jeopardy clues ever repeat?
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Re: Reference books

Post by dhkendall »

Cortana431 wrote:Is it important to know every or as many jeopardy clues from every jeopardy show in J Archive? In other words, do Jeopardy clues ever repeat?
They do repeat, but maybe one clue in every 100 games does? However, they might ask about the same thing (say, the French Revolution) several times, perhaps even twice or more in the same week, but not the same material.

That being said, many of the Great players (note the capital "G")do take note of all Archive clues, and play a lot of Archived games, to see where their strengths and weaknesses are and improve that way. That would be a good idea for anyone wanting to get on.
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Re: Reference books

Post by bpmod »

What dhkendall said, and also sometimes, while not repeating a clue verbatim, they will in effect repeat it by rewording it, or one time giving you one part and asking you the other and next time giving you the other and asking for the one.

To see examples of this, enter almost any subject into the search function of The Archive and compare some of the clues and their responses.

Brian
...but the senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity.

If I had 50 cents for every math question I got right, I'd have $6.30 by now.
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