I explained the policy and told of some studies that showed Wikipedia's accuracy is very close to that of some of the long-established encyclopedias.
This editorial by PC Magazine's long-time columnist John Dvorak explains what you need to know about the Wikipedia if you decide to use it for research:
Recently, I was on a podcast with a reporter who taught a journalism school class. He put forth two odd edicts: "Never use Wikipedia," and "Never use Google as a spell-checker." I do both. I cannot understand why you would not use Google as a spell-checker, since the misspelled word usually shows up in the hit list with variations you can then check on Webster's. And Wikipedia can bring a writer up to speed on any topic more quickly than any other research method.
What do the studies on Wikipedia accuracy say? He quotes them in his essay:
Wikipedia keeps getting higher and higher scores for accuracy. The English version, for example, is often compared with commercial encyclopedias—and is often more accurate. Recently, I received a press release about the German version of Wikipedia saying this:
"The German-language version of Wikipedia is better than Brockhaus, Germany's commercial encyclopedia, according to an analysis commissioned by Stern magazine. The popular German publication hired WIND research institute to compare 50 articles from Wikipedia and the Brockhaus online encyclopedia based on their 15-volume edition. On a scale where 1 is the best and 6 is the worst, Wikipedia's average rating was 1.7, while Brockhaus's average rating was 2.7. The study assessed articles based on accuracy, completeness, up-to-date information, and ease of reading. In 43 out of the 50 articles, Wikipedia was judged the winner. Currently, the German-language version of Wikipedia is the second biggest, after English, with 673,000 [articles]."
He tells what you need to know about Wikipedia to use it.
