zlacker

There's a website called Wikipedia that is a free online encyclopedia; a compendium of knowledge that can be freely viewed OR edited by anyone with an internet connection. Founded in 2001, it has been looked down upon by academics who believe that compiling and providing knowledge for free leads to cheating.

Over the past few years, ANOTHER new technology called Large Language Model, or LLM, has been invented. This new technology invents new sentences from whole cloth at the request of users. There are many LLM sites providing free responses to user queries. The ease with which users can get plausible answers to any question has led to complaints from the academic world that it is frequently used for cheating, supplanting the previously-favored free cheating technology known as Wikipedia.

Finally, there is an internet humor website known by the name "McSweeny's". As a humor website, sometimes it posts humorous articles written about current events.

This is one of those posts.

>>rconti+(OP)
I never shat on Wikipedia. The closest thing to it was probably those sets of encyclopedias that seem to be so ubiquitous in middle class, split-level America. And I have little doubt that Wikipedia and its army of contributors outperformed those.

>>rconti+(OP)
I believe the academics concern early on was a lack of confidence in the quality. First through the sciences then outside I think wikipedia showed sufficient quality to eventually be in the good books for academia.

>>sokka_+Td
Yeah, some people didn't like it because anyone could edit it, in contrast to books & journal articles anyone with a bit of money could publish.

You still shouldn't cite it, because it's not a primary source. That's the same with any encyclopedia.

>>JKCalh+a9
It happened a lot in acedemia. And there was good reason there too. Wikipedia is horrible for developing stories, for example.

The real key for rigorous use was to look at what was cited, not quote directly from wikipedia.