60% of Pocket-lint readers trust Wikipedia

Poll results show online encyclopedia gets thumbs up

4 August 2008 17:15 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

In our latest Pocket-lint reader poll we asked if you trusted Wikipedia. It seems 60% of you do trust the the free online encyclopedia, while 40% are wary of info the site that anyone can edit.

Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and is made up of online wikis, which - famously - allow anyone to edit an entry.

It passed a milestone earlier this year with the addition of the 10 millionth article across 253 languages, but is still criticised for inaccuracy by some.

So are 60% of Pocket-lint readers right to trust the site that made headlines last year when the Wiki-Scanner tool revealed that companies and individuals were editing articles for their own means?

Science title Nature compared the online site to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and found that on average, Wikipedia had only one more error per entry than the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Similarly, German computer magazine, "c't" gave Wikipedia a 3.6 rating out of 5 for accuracy, which beat Microsoft Encarta which got a 3.1 rating.