Aug. 27, 2012
April Wefler
[email protected]
Wikipedia is almost never used in college papers, as most professors ban the use of user-edited resources. Most believe that the ability of any user to edit the content makes Wikipedia unreliable. However, one UCCS professor disagrees.
“I think that Wikipedia is the greatest encyclopedia resource ever written,” said Sam Milazzo, senior physics instructor. He noted that its hard science pages are absolutely second-to-none, as good as (if not better than) any textbook he’s ever seen.
“The idea that anybody can get on there and put whatever they want is probably true for pages on Britney Spears but not scientific websites because they’re all policed by people who know what they’re doing.”
A friend of his once edited a page on Velociraptors, adding that they never strike in the same place twice. The information couldn’t have been on the site for more than 10 minutes before it was deleted; he added it again. The second time, it was online for 30 seconds.
“Immediately, he gets an email from a paleontologist from Oxford; ‘Dude, this is very funny, but it doesn’t belong on this website.'”