Throughout university, the professors would always stress that Wikipedia was not a reliable source for information. So essay after essay, I went elsewhere for information and I never even thought of using Wikipedia as a reference. But now, there's a reason to trust Wikipedia.
Professors at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt, Germany, created a new tool, http://www.wiki-watch.org/, used to check the quality of articles on Wikipedia.
“With http://www.Wiki-Watch.org , everybody can check the reliability of information within Wikipedia,” said Wolfgang Stock, one of the founding professors, in a press release.
Wiki-Watch analyzes every Wikipedia entry ever created, check the number of sources and links used, the quality of the editing and how many people edited the entry. It takes a few seconds for it to check one of the 3.5 million articles, according to Stock.
“This algorithm has been developed in Germany. Now, it is available in English, too,” he said.
Wiki-Watch is integrated with WikiTrust, created at the University of California Santa Cruz, is a colour coded system used to check the reputation of the article among viewers by identifying how many times the article was revised by other people.
Additionally, Wiki-Watch has incorporated 'WikiTrust,' developed by the University of California Santa Cruz.
The tool evaluates the article checking for the reliability of the article including individual words used within the article.
If I went back to university today, I would use Wikipedia as a reference, to prove those professors wrong because it is “fact-checked.”