I have such an intense love/hate relationship with Wikipedia. On the one hand, I'm so thankful that a resource exists to give me instant access to lots of mundane shit -- on the other hand, the internal politics, the so-called professional Wikipedian class (in truth, largely un(der)employed obsessives who have genuinely nothing better to do than fight over mundane bureaucratic issues) make it a resource that both cannot be relied upon and that is largely impossible to correct. It is both such a scourge and yet such an important resource.
For most things of any import (aside from areas like geography or fundamental parts of science, which are usually trustworthy), I rely on the sources cited by Wikipedia to try to suss out actual information, rather than Wikipedia itself, but that often takes a lot of time and doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia, for better or worse, is the central general knowledge repository of our time.
The adage that teachers still teach, "don't cite Wikipedia" -- has some merit, sure, but also has increasingly become a joke because actual edited encyclopedias (which yes, had their own issues, but also had standards and oversight that needed to be answered to) have basically become extinct -- so what are people supposed to use?
I genuinely long for the days of stuff like the Encarta CD-ROMs, or even expensive encyclopedia sets -- not because I think those resources could keep up with the breadth of knowledge that Wikipedia obviously has, but because whatever biases they may have aside (and every source or text has a bias -- which makes Wikipedia's NPOV mandate all the more ironic), they were edited and staffed by professionals.
I'm constantly bombarded by pleas for money from Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation, despite that fact that the Wikimedia Foundation has revenues of something like $150 million a year, and where most of the budget goes to pay for staff (hosting is only $2.5 million), not anyone who actually contributes to the content. The whole appeal of Wikipedia is supposed to be that anyone can edit it, but that isn't actually true (the gatekeepers make even correcting typos a chore) and the lack of commitment to verifiability, especially when it comes to living people, makes the whole thing utterly depressing.
For most things of any import (aside from areas like geography or fundamental parts of science, which are usually trustworthy), I rely on the sources cited by Wikipedia to try to suss out actual information, rather than Wikipedia itself, but that often takes a lot of time and doesn't change the fact that Wikipedia, for better or worse, is the central general knowledge repository of our time.
The adage that teachers still teach, "don't cite Wikipedia" -- has some merit, sure, but also has increasingly become a joke because actual edited encyclopedias (which yes, had their own issues, but also had standards and oversight that needed to be answered to) have basically become extinct -- so what are people supposed to use?
I genuinely long for the days of stuff like the Encarta CD-ROMs, or even expensive encyclopedia sets -- not because I think those resources could keep up with the breadth of knowledge that Wikipedia obviously has, but because whatever biases they may have aside (and every source or text has a bias -- which makes Wikipedia's NPOV mandate all the more ironic), they were edited and staffed by professionals.
I'm constantly bombarded by pleas for money from Wikipedia/Wikimedia Foundation, despite that fact that the Wikimedia Foundation has revenues of something like $150 million a year, and where most of the budget goes to pay for staff (hosting is only $2.5 million), not anyone who actually contributes to the content. The whole appeal of Wikipedia is supposed to be that anyone can edit it, but that isn't actually true (the gatekeepers make even correcting typos a chore) and the lack of commitment to verifiability, especially when it comes to living people, makes the whole thing utterly depressing.