Quote:
Originally Posted by Shades
Wikipedia can be wrong sometimes, but moderators are usually quick to correct errors. Wikipedia gets a lot of flak for being inaccurate when in reality that's just false. Articles are looked after very fastidiously. This is why the above link says Wiki and Britannica have similar figures when it comes to inaccuracy.
Also, Wikipedia is updated constantly and will usually contain the latest information on a subject.
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Wikipedia has some editorial policies that are not well understood. To boil it down, their - published - policy is that they are, in essence, a popularity contest for factoids, and actual fact is secondary. They don't say it quite that way, of course, but that's what it amounts to.
One policy says that primary sources are not allowed a references. The reasons are understandable, but there's a price for that particular "solution." It's a policy to address problems with edit wars on controversial subjects, that ignores the problems it causes.
Another policy gives more weight to sources that are more widely quoted. Again, it makes sense on the surface, but again, there's a price.
What you get is that on controversial topics, or topics on which recent research has refuted long held wisdom, Wikipedia can't be updated even though it is provably wrong.
Here
If someone writes a biography of you, and it gets quote a lot, but it has the wrong date of birth for you, neither you
not your birth certificate is an acceptable source to correct it.
When confronted on this, Wikipedia's editors response is, basically, "yeah, that's how it works, because that's how we want it to work."
Wikipedia is an excellent source for stuff that's not controversial, and stuff that's not changing, but only if it's not critically important knowledge. It's an OK source for references to do further reearch, sometimes, but never rely on Wikipedia alone even for that.