I often need to recall a summary of an old movie or a book, or some basic background stuff on a historical character or event.

Now I am 54, and I have a good bit of experience and education. I am also not using the Wiki in a school thesis situation.

I find Wiki quite good for the use to which I put it. It, like Snopes, Jeeves, Answers.com, reference.com, etc. has a purpose, and if rightly used, can be quite convenient.

If I read a book 20 years ago, and need to recall the gist of it, Wiki is often good. I simply have to be aware to watch out for bias in the writer(s) of the article, and so on. Using Wiki for R&D-ing somebody currently alive and famous (or infamous, like “That Great Saltzman Guy”!), is probably not the best idea. Looking to Wiki for a quick Synopsis on “The Old Man and The Sea” is ok. But I would not use Wiki as my sole source, for say, a book report. (Although I have not written one of those in years!)

One problem with Wiki, is that there are often “Gaps”, I Google for some info, and see no Wiki entry, but Googling usually gives me another lead, so, often I can solve my need for quick, basic facts that way.

Sadly, “conventional” resources like Britannica, or Encarta, etc, rarely show up in my Google Results listing… Unless they are “several pages in”, where I rarely venture to such depth. I have no idea why. I guess theri stuff is not properly Web Indexed, or whatever.

Sorry somebody gave you a Wiki Flame, Marc. One hopes you and your wife had an “enjoyable chance to prove them wrong” on that issue! [Yes, I am an incurable romantic.] There are errors and bad guys everywhere. We just have to step around them.

Keep your chin up, Marc.

Regards, Pierre.

As a result, I cannot stress enough the importance of checking sources listed at the bottom of an article. It takes a few minutes, and almost every statement in a good article can be backed up by a reliable source.

Wikipedia even states that the website is not to be used as a primary source; rather, as a tertiary source, a collection of information referenced to professional publications.

As others have stated, the real problem comes from students (and professionals sometimes) copying information from Wikipedia verbatim, and getting in trouble for either plagiarism or false information.

In my history of vandal-fighting, I have discovered that – although many vandals can post very plausible-sounding information, making it necessary to check stuff – there really aren’t that many vandals compared to the users making positive edits. It’s essentially a case of laissez faire – certainly use Wikipedia, but double-check the important stuff.

The root of the problem seems to be that students are requested to write essays on topics that they could not care less about, but that handing mediocre work is not really punished. In an economic sense, they have every incentive to copy.

@AJ: Probably your students did not even read what they had copied. :-)

Also, the University of Minnesota conducted a study of error rates on Wikipedia (what they called “damaged views”), and they found that over time, Wikipedia’s chance of showing the reader a mistake is increasing on an exponential curve.

I happened to chair a study of how Wikipedia treats the 100 articles about the United States senators. The articles were deliberately malformed about 6.8% of the time, and the average error took 24 hours to fix.

All of this has been documented. Then the media suppresses the results, because “people seem to love Wikipedia, so why spoil their fun?”