Experts Rate Wikipedia Higher Than Non Experts

from arstechnica,

A new Wikipedia study concludes that experts rate an article in their field of study more highly than do non-experts.

This less-than-intuitive finding is the conclusion of a study in which Chesney had 55 graduate students and research assistants examine one Wikipedia article apiece. Each participant was randomly placed into one of two groups: group one read articles that were in their field of study, while group two read randomly-assigned articles. Respondents were asked to identify any errors that they found.

Those in the expert group ranked their articles as generally credible, higher than those evaluated by the non-experts. Chesney admits that this is unexpected, but has a possible explanation: "It may be the case that non-experts are more cynical about information outside of their field and the difference comes from a natural reaction to rate unfamiliar articles as being less credible."