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Aspartame: Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World (Wikipedia Abuse)

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app103:
When I hear something from a reliable source about Aspartame I'll take the information on board. But I don't take health advice from casual sources.
-Eóin (January 12, 2011, 08:07 AM)
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THIS is my worry. We all too often take Wikipedia as "truth".

Now, take those that are less "techno-savvy" as most people here. What will THEY believe?

It's scary. Who are the "authorities"? We cannot trust Wikipedia.

For tech stuff, it's different. In tech, we're more honest.
-Renegade (January 12, 2011, 08:41 AM)
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There is a good reason why a lot of schools won't allow students to cite Wikipedia as a source, and this is it.

f0dder:
There is a good reason why a lot of schools won't allow students to cite Wikipedia as a source, and this is it.-app103 (January 12, 2011, 09:33 AM)
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IMHO flat out banning wikipedia as a source is a bit silly, since a lot of articles (especially those about tech) are decent enough. But there's definitely a lot of articles for which WP shouldn't be used as an authoritative source :)

Still, for most stuff it does serve as a good starting point for research.

steeladept:
IMHO flat out banning wikipedia as a source is a bit silly, since a lot of articles (especially those about tech) are decent enough. But there's definitely a lot of articles for which WP shouldn't be used as an authoritative source :)

Still, for most stuff it does serve as a good starting point for research.
-f0dder (January 12, 2011, 10:04 AM)
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That is fine if you are using it as a source for FINDING primary sources, but most schools won't accept it AS the primary (or even secondary) source for just that reason.  That is why it is not silly at all.  The right way to use it for research is to go to Wikipedia, go to the source links, and use those sources - or not, depending on the project.

Renegade:
Checking the Wikipedia History is a VERY good thing to do. It's time consuming, but you can learn a lot. Especially things like how certain articles are flooded with 1-sided views.

JavaJones:
Wikipedia is not even intended as a primary source as far as I know. It's intended to give information on a subject then refer to *its* primary sources for further information and proper referencing.

Btw Renegade, I presume you've read the Aspartame talk page, it's pretty interesting to watch the back-and-forth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Aspartame_controversy#Some_concerns_raised_by_Arydberg
While I'm not a fan of aspartame in general, I'm also a fan of good science and reliable sources. This is especially true given various recent scandals regarding similar "edge" research, like the vaccine-autism controversy. So I don't necessarily feel the page is necessarily *that* biased, it's biased (theoretically) toward an accepted scientific view ("accepted" here meaning peer-reviewed and not found to be faulty, misrepresented, etc.). I didn't see a lot of good, sourced rebuttal from the opposing side in the discussion page unfortunately; mostly it was the editors saying "give us reliable external sources" and then getting a reply like "check this other page that collects theories about the subject", which of course is neither reliable nor an original source. I'd like to believe the opposing argument *is* stronger than that though!

- Oshyan

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