Asperger wikipedia entry

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The current wikipedia on a.s. is alot of crap.

And I attempted to change some of it, but they immediately put it back there:

Persons with AS do not have normal lifespans,[75] (equating to a few years less)

I hope this ain't true.

The wikipedia can be edited by anyone i even did a aprils fool on my football teams wikipedia anyone can come along and retype what was there before or add something else. Maybe they have some rule about disorder parts of Wikipedia i don't know.

The lifespan thing is a load of rubbish by the way unless they mean suicide i don't know.

Wikipedia contains alot of misinformation and usually is a load of crap. Anyone can go into its website and alter any of its information. Recently, there was a broadcast by one of the big Newscasts (NBC, I think) about college students using Wikipedia as a bibliographical resource in there college term papers and how professors were outraged at the poor quality of term papers they received as most of
the students used Wikipedia as their major resource of reseach information.
If you want good information on a subject, there are plenty of excellent websites on
the internet. But, stay completely away from Wikipedia. The only reason they are allowed to print such "garbage" is due to the first constitutional amendment.

Wikipedia isn't complete garbage and to call it something that only exists due to constitutional protection is ridiculous. Wikipedia is a good source of information for informal use, it is easily accessible, it has information on most things, it even has website links for further information from sources that can be more trustworthy. Is it good to use on a term paper? No. I believe that it isn't. Is it the evil source that so many people paint it out to be? No. Wikipedia is usually somewhat accurate and when compared to a source commonly believed as accurate, Encyclopedia Britannica, it didn't compare too unfavorably. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4530930.stm

Really, I think that wiki suffers from the problem that there are a few highly publicized cases of failure and that most people think that it is a completely anarchic system.

By the way: the 75 thing that you copied over is a link to their source for that information. They didn't pull it completely out of their ass, but rather used a study claiming that autistic people have higher mortality rates to show their point. It could be that AS people have shorter life spans, we don't have good relationships, which tend to be a thing that increase the life expectancy of most people, and we have a few comorbid disorders such as depression and other things. It is true that they could have a bad study, the only major problem I see with it is that it focuses on autistic people in general with only 33% of the population used being non-retarded so it might belong on a general autism page more so than the AS one.

Really though, the source in question is really well-cited. If you doubt anything, you can possibly do your own research to see if the claim is valid.

Yeah, I think the Wikipedia definition is fine for a good general overview. I don't think Wikipedia's meant to be taken too seriously in the first place, due to the very nature of how it's set up.

It really is incredible how many students think that they can use it as a reference when they are writing a paper. I am routinely having to take off points because studens have cited wikipedia, thinking it is valid for use in a college paper. Drives me nuts.

Wiki is really meant for just General Knowledge, like you want to know more about the topic just because you want to know more about it.

I was considering putting a "rumor" out there that The Simpsons Movie would also be available in IMAX or something later, but I'd figure no one would buy it.

Respected journals have asserted that wikipedia is on the same terms with Encyclopedia Brittanica in terms of accuracy.

Your response is typical college professor BS.

Yeah, I will agree that people should recognize that it is not a perfect authority, however, too many people have this view that wikipedia is intellectual suicide, and frankly the facts on this matter do not justify this position in my opinion. Especially given the number of well-cited articles on wikipedia.

Wikipedia should be less public. Perhaps then, perhaps then.

Well, technically they are striving for both in some ways. If it is no longer public though then it can no longer draw off of the knowledge of all people around it, quality control mechanisms are needed though and do currently exist.

Wikipedia rocks! No single source of information should be trusted however without cross checking with other sources. Wikipedia articles I have read were good at listing what "facts" had references to the source and which that had no references. A smart student will lookup the references for their college papers.

Wikipedia needs to have about 10 times as much knowledge as has presently and have clearer ideas to how to make, and who makes, the entries more complete and well referenced.

Exactly. Especially since anyone can edit Wikipedia. So for example someone might be doing a research paper on the causes of World War I, and someone else could edit the entry on Gavrilo Princip (the man who shot the Archduke Ferdinand) so that it reads that Princip was a known drug user who was working on orders for the Swedish Mafia. There it would be in black and white for the researcher to see. If he knew nothing about the subject, how would he know that this was a random act of vandalism?

You're right, the smart ones would look up the references cited on Wikipedia and use those.

The dumb ones will copy and paste the Wikipedia article and try to pass it off as their own research. I've heard about that happening.

The fact that anyone can edit Wikipedia, that there is no scholarly editorial control, means that it won't be taken seriously in the academic community. But then, that's not who Wikipedia is intended for.

Exactly. Nothing wrong with using it for looking up something random that your are curious about. Or to get some background knowledge on a subject as you begin your research. But so many students think that it is valid to quote or cite wikipedia in papers they are turning in for college-level classes. And that's not acceptable. Not because the information is necessarily inaccurate, but because it is not an academic source. The sources they need to use are journal articles, original monographs, and the like.

There's really nothing inherently wrong with wikipedia if you use it for and accept it for what it is. The problem is when people overuse it.

I use the site for research in school, but I don't take the entries as truth. What I do is to read an entry on an unknown subject (the one I'm researching) to get a broader view. (Wikipedia is great for that). If there's something that seems like a bit of useful information, it's usually cited (and linked) in the page. I'll then use that link to derive whatever information I needed.

Wikipedia is a good starting point for scholarly research, but you need to refine the search a bit once you're there.