This is something that I have been worrying about for quite some time. As far as my profession is concerned, information provided by wikipedia is not only comparable to that of Britannica, but much better than it. As for computing and math, the two major strong realms of wikipedia, I can also tell that the information is up-to-date and accurate. As a lover of literature, I often refer to this encyclopedia for updates of the authors I read. However, I am less sure about history articles, as they are often the “disputed” notice. I think readers should refer to more authoritative references in these areas. After all, Britannica and Encarta are written by experts and the articles often come with references so further reading can be carried out to clarify the facts.

I think, users in general should focus more on wikipedia’s unique ability to keep abreast with current affairs. I often browse it for new entries about new animes and dramas aired on TV every day and the synopsis and character list help a lot in understanding those animes and dramas. This is just one example of many things that only wikipedia can deliever.

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I think that the problem is not only the vandals that want to screw everything on the site like some people. I think that the real problem is that most of the people that writes articles aren't qualified for it (despite i know some teachers/professors that write in there) so maybe I think I know about something and I write an article and, without noting, the article has some wrong information, because, let's face it, half of the wikipedia articles don't have any sources and if they have, the sources say something totally different to what is being said in the article, they just put sources to say their article has credibility but in the truth, they don't have.

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Wiki is a useful tool. When I was doing book research, it had some different topics, and sometimes when I'm bored at work waiting for a render to finish I will look around Wiki. That being said, I am not sure I would use it for any academic work other than to see what sources they cite.

The problem with something that anyone can edit is that any one can edit. That just makes it ripe for vandels and that 1% of the population that enjoys screwing things up for everyone else.

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Ok people I don't know you. But I was doing a school homework for physics (specifically the temperature measures) and I went to wikipedia (Portuguese and Spanish) and I summarize the info of both sites.
For my surprise, the teacher asks us to read what we had brought and when I say my information (“There are 8 temperature measures accepted by the International System”) my teacher says it’s definitely wrong, and that I would have to bring her my sources so she could tell the “book writer” that the info was wrong. Imagine what would happen if she knew that I took the info from wikipedia, from where none of the information has any supervision?

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Yep, Wikipedia is great. It provides information on so many topics, many even which are not covered in conventional encyclopaedias. Of course there may be some inaccuracies, though even with a growing user base, theoretically, more people should be able to spot the increasing number of edit errors.

I use it, but usually double check information on it from another source. I find most of the articles give a good general overview of a topic and allow you to research further into it with some main ideas.

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