Quote:
Originally Posted by thibaulthalpern
... Wikipedia is never a credible source of information for writing academic papers because we don't know the expertise of the persons writing the entry and it is not easily traceable where certain information in Wikipedia comes from. In addition, one generally doesn't cite a general encyclopedia (which Wikipedia is) for academic writing whether it is printed or not....
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I agree with your last sentence. But I kind of disagree, that Wikipedia is "never" a credible source. Much more often, than not, the information is accurate.
But more importantly, Wikipedia can be a valuable source, as a
stepping stone to conducting research on a subject, by providing a basic overview. As you continue your research, you may find that some of the Wikipedia information may not be accurate, or you may disagree with it's bias/conclusions, but it is so with many printed books as well. On the whole, it's a valuable resource for all.
As to research, at least for what I do, digital is much, much better, than dealing with paper volumes. One can search through a large amount of information much faster, can go back and forth among a great number of sources with ease, etc.. But I know that some disagree, and that's fine, for them.
And, the open-source text-books idea sounds good to me. It also does not preclude having editor(s), so I don't see what the problem is.