[Belfaborac]

To say that Wikipedia is garbage as a reference source is clearly BUUUULLL!!!! I have used Wikipedia as a basis for research, articles and lectures scores of times in the last few years. It's almost always my starting point of choice, because I know it will furnish me with a good selection of sources, from which I can begin to work outwards. It certainly wouldn't be appropriate to use it as one's sole source for serious research, but to claim that it is 'garbage' is just ignorant and plain silly. As stated by others, it also very much depends on the area of research: current affairs, on-going conflicts, politics and various religious issues are generally much less reliable than other subjects.

And I say this, by the way, as someone who has meters and meters of shelf space filled with Encyclopaedia Britannica volumes bound in Moroccan goat skin, as well as a full set of Great Books of the Western World and various other stuff. All of which I love dearly.