So, out of curiosity, I figured this would be a good chance to see what everyone think's about the reliability of our friend, Wikipedia. I'd say it's pretty accurate, and the only time I've ever heard of random info being on page, it was edited and gone by the time I went to see for myself. So in my opinion it probably shouldn't be a basis of research, but I think most (if not all) of the time it'll be accurate for what you're looking for. Just wondering what everyone thinks, or if they could actually share a moment when they found wrong information.

*this thread was created due to curiosity from bringing it up in another 'debate.'

well, Wikipedia itself is not an actual source of information but rather a compilation of references to actual information. It is a condensed and researched explanation of millions of topics. The information is generally very accurate but in and of itself it is not a true source so to use it in a debate alone is stupid. You're better off finding the reference for the thing you are talking about at the bottom of the wikipedia page and using that instead. That seems more credible.

Geeogree summed up what I was going to say pretty well. It is a great tool to look up info fast, like the dates of a certain king's reign or something, but never use it as a reference for an academic paper or you will be laughed out of the classroom. Same goes for all forms of encyclopedias to be honest, but the cool thing with Wikipedia is that a good page has scholarly sources and links to those sources in the footnotes.

Academics aside, I love wikipedia because you can just spend hours looking up random things, going from link to link and I just think that is awesome.

They have gotten much better about promoting accuracy on their pages as well, ever since Stephen Colbert showed how easy it was to alter a page's info.

wikipedia so far hasn't let me down yet so it's a pretty reliable source of information to me

It is a good thing for general knowledge, like details of an earthquake. but see an expert for stuff like medication reccomendations.

I think it's a great place for either exactly the answer your looking for, or a great place to start your research from. It does not however give textbooks answers, or ones teachers/professors look for. Its great if you know all that is said on the page, but then you sound more like someone giving a financials analysis (say u were looking at economics on wiki), not wat a student answer should be.

I think Wikipedia is very trustworthy for an internet resource. They do my a concerted effort to make sure the articles are accurate and will post signs to the effect of "This article is not very accurate."

Like everyone else says, it is absolutely trustworthy for pretty much any information you want to find. If you can't believe a page or a bit of info, simply scan the referenced pages and judge then. There's a certain controversy about it's reliability though, always coming from someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. Their excuses would be, "But it can be edited!" or, "Do you always trust what you read on the internet?" Anybody's who actually tried to edit the pages themselves would see this is false, even if the certain article wasn't protected by security measures. If the edit wasn't a legitimate attempt at updating the site, or was very unprofessionally done, it would be taken off in minutes if not seconds (I've experienced the edit being removed in about 10 seconds after reloading the page). It's just stubborn, ignorant people like my English teacher who think it can be edited, even though my friend SHOWED her over and over again that it cannot be edited without proper permission.

I use Wikipedia as a source, however when I am citing information in my bibliography I don't use it. It's technically a hub of info (as others have said), that re-directs you to external pages where you can read primary sources and other tidbits of info. Wikipedia is also great to use if you're looking to grasp a subject; for example, if you were curious about a science term, going to a science-based site might be too overwhelming. Therefore, by simply visiting a Wikipedia page on said subject, you can get the basic idea of what it is.

That's what Wikipedia is to me.

I used Wikipedia quite frequently in High School for Papers and such, and i found alot of info quickly, so i would it was definitely my savior, however friends of mine using the same site would have difficulty finding the right info, but they used Wikipedia to find a link to what they were looking for... so i would say, if your not gonna use it as a source at least used it as a reference.