Well said. The major problem with Wikipedia is that unless a topic is extremely popular, most of the editors interested in working on the topic will have a huge bias toward one particular point of view. They will directly cite advocacy organizations that support their view in the body of the article over neutral sources. Fixing this is basically impossible. "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is true in the sense that "anyone can become an editor" which is true in the sense of "anyone can become a millionaire." In reality, reforming a problematic article on Wikipedia would take a major investment into getting an account with the requisite reputation and friends in similar positions of power. Most of us can't be bothered.
The other major problem with Wikipedia is the low quality of many of its writers, at least (again) for topics a little outside mainstream interest. Last time I edited Wikipedia, I discovered an organized editing effort by a professor teaching a course at a community college. I tracked it to the course website, and apparently as a semester long project, students were asked to pick an article and slowly incorporate improvements to it as well as check the quality of other incoming changes.
Now, I've taught classes at a pretty well regarded public university, and having had to grade the writing of incoming students from good high schools, my assessment of the writing skills provided by America's primary education system is Not Great. I can only imagine that the caliber of student coming into a typical community college is even worse. This isn't to trash this particular student or even the class, but to give an idea of who's editing Wikipedia, on a good day.
The article I was reading (which I'd regard as important - I actually found it after seeing statistics it provided quoted by well-known publications) had slowly been turned into complete garbage over the course of a few months by this student. It was barely coherent English. Statistics were misquoted and misinterpreted throughout (everyone citing the Wikipedia article had been misled, as a result). And this was the result of one editor doing a bad job, not even deliberate astroturfing. Suffice it to say, it's very dangerous to take Wikipedia seriously on any subject of importance unless the article about it has been widely reviewed.
The other major problem with Wikipedia is the low quality of many of its writers, at least (again) for topics a little outside mainstream interest. Last time I edited Wikipedia, I discovered an organized editing effort by a professor teaching a course at a community college. I tracked it to the course website, and apparently as a semester long project, students were asked to pick an article and slowly incorporate improvements to it as well as check the quality of other incoming changes.
Now, I've taught classes at a pretty well regarded public university, and having had to grade the writing of incoming students from good high schools, my assessment of the writing skills provided by America's primary education system is Not Great. I can only imagine that the caliber of student coming into a typical community college is even worse. This isn't to trash this particular student or even the class, but to give an idea of who's editing Wikipedia, on a good day.
The article I was reading (which I'd regard as important - I actually found it after seeing statistics it provided quoted by well-known publications) had slowly been turned into complete garbage over the course of a few months by this student. It was barely coherent English. Statistics were misquoted and misinterpreted throughout (everyone citing the Wikipedia article had been misled, as a result). And this was the result of one editor doing a bad job, not even deliberate astroturfing. Suffice it to say, it's very dangerous to take Wikipedia seriously on any subject of importance unless the article about it has been widely reviewed.