On Sat, 20 May 2006 08:32:02 GMT, Barky Bark wrote:

> wikipedia is a great tool for a casual overview of a topic or a place to
> begin one's research, but beyond that it gets mighty sketchy.

Not necessarily (regarding "mighty sketchy"). A study by the journal
"Nature" found that, on average, Wikipedia was as reliable as the
Encyclopedia Britannica. Of course, Britannica disputes the findings.

However, my experience has been that on "factual" matters, Wikipedia is
pretty reliable. Items with more emotional investment, such as politics or
biography of controversial people, are a little less reliable, in my
opinion.

However, if my kid ever tried to use Wikipedia as a primary reference for a
school paper, we'd have to have words.

--
Derek

"Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make
mistakes." -- Mahatma Gandhi