problems with wikipedia

"the absence of traditional editorial controls makes Wikipedia unsuited to serious research. "How do they know it's accurate?" Ross asks. "People can put down anything." "For it lacks one vital feature of the traditional encyclopedia: accountability. Old-school reference books hire expert scholars to write their articles, and employ skilled editors to check and double-check their work. Wikipedia's articles are written by anyone who fancies himself an expert...."
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/07/12/one_great_source____if_you_can_trust_it/

The word on Wikipedia: Trust but verify
Popular online encyclopedia, plagued by errors, troubles educators
By Lisa Daniels and Alex Johnson
msnbc.com and NBC News
March. 29, 2007
Lisa Daniels
Correspondent
MIDDLEBURY, Vt. - Neil Waters had never seen anything quite like it. "I was looking at a stack of final examinations," said Waters, a professor of Japanese studies at Middlebury College in Vermont, "and I found several instances of misinformation that [were] identical from one student to another." All of those students in Waters' Japanese history class late last year had been steered wrong by the same source — Wikipedia, the sprawling online encyclopedia that has revolutionized how ordinary people find information....
For Middlebury College's history department, the answer is plain: Not totally, and not always. The department banned students from using it as a source in their papers, although they are allowed to consult it for background material, a move that was quickly mimicked by professors at other schools, including UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania....
Just this year, a Wikipedia entry falsely proclaimed that the comedian Sinbad was dead. ("Saturday, I rose from the dead," he said.) Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller sued last month to find out who anonymously posted, falsely, that he abused drugs. And a prolific and highly trusted contributor believed to be a professor was unmasked as a 24-year-old college dropout.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17740041/



10 Questions: Jimmy Wales 3/21/07
How can I persuade my teachers to allow me to use Wikipedia as a legitimate research source?—Kaitlyn Grigsby, Medina, Ohio
I would agree with your teachers that that isn't the right way to use Wikipedia. The site is a wonderful starting point for research. But it's only a starting point because there's always a chance that there's something wrong, and you should check your sources if you are writing a paper.
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1601491,00.html


One great source -- if you can trust it
By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff | July 12, 2004
So of course Wikipedia is popular. Maybe too popular. For it lacks one vital feature of the traditional encyclopedia: accountability. Old-school reference books hire expert scholars to write their articles, and employ skilled editors to check and double-check their work. Wikipedia's articles are written by anyone who fancies himself an expert....

Ross admits to reading and enjoying Wikipedia, and has even gotten ideas there for future Britannica articles. But the absence of traditional editorial controls makes Wikipedia unsuited to serious research. "How do they know it's accurate?" Ross asks. "People can put down anything."
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2004/07/12/one_great_source____if_you_can_trust_it/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6947532.stm
Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits'
An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/22/wikipedia_vandalism_crackdown/
Jimbo Wales ends death by Wikipedia
Kennedy murder shames online cult
By Cade Metz in San Francisco
On Tuesday afternoon, following a Washington luncheon celebrating the inauguration of President Barack Obama, longtime US Senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd kicked the proverbial bucket. At least, that's what happened in Wikiland. In our world, they're still among the living.

Wikipedia black helicopters circle Utah's Traverse Mountain
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/06/wikipedia_and_overstock/ Wikipedia is not a democracy. But the totalitarian attitudes of the site's ruling clique go much further than Jimbo cares to acknowledge. In early September, the Wikipedia inner circle banned edits from 1,000 homes and one massive online retailer in an attempt to suppress the voice of one man.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomis
Bomis is a dot-com company founded in 1996. Its primary business is the sale of advertising on the Bomis.com search portal. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and Tim Shell, and provided support for the free encyclopedia projects Nupedia and Wikipedia....
Bomis ran a website called Bomis Premium at premium.bomis.com until 2005, offering customers access to premium, X-rated[3] pornographic content.

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/12/69880
Wales has also repeatedly revised the description of a search site he founded called Bomis, which included a section with adult photos called "Bomis Babes."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/corrections/jimmy-wales-1624615.html