CrowsNest wrote:FlatSnout wrote:it is usefully (with appropriate caution) for quickly looking up basic core facts
The appropriate caution required for Wikipedia is such that you are always better off simply not even looking at Wikipedia.
Well, that calls for just one single example to disprove: Is there a faster and significantly more reliable way to find the DoB of Winston Churchill?
CrowsNest wrote:FlatSnout wrote:and occasionally finding links to authoritative sources of information.
Only for the lazy or stupid, neither of whom should probably be doing anything that requires looking for sources of authoritative information.
The fact is, people do see Wikipedia as an encyclopedia precisely because ...
I have to either disagree with the premise of people seeing Wikipedia as an encyclopedia, or what an encyclopedia is.
What I experience people doing (in real life, and thanks to mobile devices) is that they're primarily (nearly exclusively) looking up simple non-controversial facts. In real life, I have never once heard anyone use the word "encyclopedia" (or any word equivalent or similar thereto) in conjunction with Wikipedia.
What a general encyclopedia is, is a collection of short articles (short to the point of often bordering abstracts) about any topic or subject of not too narrow interest.
And the information contained, in said articles, having been obtained & written by experts (meaning: people who's been verified as competent, i.e. educated & experienced, in regard to the topics' they're writing about).
In short: Close to none (none outside the tangled universe of Wikipedians) regards Wikipedia as being encyclopedic.
Note! That's from my personal experience, and may be tainted by my location (I'm not in the US, and I'm not an American).
Having said that, then: What an awfully waste of human lifetime it's been & is, creating & "maintaining" so much text (Wikipedia articles) of so dubious quality. (Wikipedia is a bit like having & using what's
postulated to be gold, solely for its weight, even though a common ordinary stone would have done equally fine.)