How dependable, really, is Wikipedia?

All my school teachers tell me not to use it as a source in assignments because we have no way of telling if the information is authentic. This is true, but I also don't believe somebody could write entire articles on, say, the Roman Empire and make it all up. Okay, some points they might have made up but I don't think the Wikipedia is nothing but made-up stories.

Who's right? My teachers or me? I only use Wikipedia to get supporting info, not the bulk of what my assignment is.

As it's only moderated by others reading articles and adjusting tehm if they are untrue... it's probably generally fairly good but may propagate widely held misbeliefs.

So in general it's reliable but in the specific it can be totally wrong.

As you said, if someone made up a whole article about the roman empire it would be spotted as bogus and corrected fairly quickly. But an article about the finer points of anodized finagel widgets (on which I am the expert) could be totally bogus and survive for ages as no-one would know any different. Oh, they don't really exist, so any article about them would be bogus.

But what do your teachers say about encyclopedia in general? The reality is an encyclopedia is a bunch of articles written and vetted by a limited number of people... so can contain totally bogus articles as well. Or they can be outdated by changes in reality... like my parent's late 19th centrury encyclopaedia that goes on about disease being caused by miasmas... it was current understanding when written but was b******x really!

There is a ton of incorrect information in Wikipedia. Especially if you are researching businesses and things outside of history. The problem is that many businesses, companies, individuals use the site to market themselves. The moderators do not always do a good job, because a lot of the time they are guilty of it themselves.

There's a lot of truth there, but it's tainted by blatant mistakes and falsehoods. Because of that, the user can't know what information is accurate and what's just opinion, conjecture, or plain old fiction.

Try scholarpedia.com, which is vetted by academics for accuracy. Less content, but all of it right.

Hi! Nice question! All the information in wikipedia is continuously edited, so if there is a mistake or made up fact, it is usually corrected after a while. I think you're right, not your teachers: here in Greece, wikipedia is an approved source even for some university essays!

It's because Wikipedia can be edited by anyone which means anyone, even people with only the intention of valdalizing an article, can do it.

This also means, at times, people add stuff on articles without verifying and/or checking the facts straight. Which means certain facts may not be 100% or relies on popular opinion only.

Not to mention the "politics" that can happen inside an article in which a person (Or a group of persons) will "own" an article and will harass, fight or even stalk the person in which edits their "own" article. (In which I am a witness of several times.)

So for me, wikipedia is a good read to get basic facts about stuff, but should never be your only source of information.