It seems to me that Wikipedia gives us a view of a subject that is a kind of smoothed-out average across all the public contributors opinions on that topic, whereas traditional encyclopedias give us a peer-review/scholar based view.
That in itself would seem to make Wikipedia interesting and useful, simply as an alternative source of information.
The lack of referencing seems a serious problem though. Joe Bloggs may have something interesting and relevant to say, but if he hasn't backed up his content with any references, how are readers or future editors supposed to judge it? They could ask him, if he's left contact details and is still around, but otherwise...
There seems to be a distinct lack of referencing going on at Wikipedia, I think the Wikipedia community should consider changing the system so that it encourages people to indicate sources for all their content, whether their sources are other web-pages, books, articles, conversations, first hand experiences, etc.
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It seems to me that Wikipedia gives us a view of a subject that is a kind of smoothed-out average across all the public contributors opinions on that topic, whereas traditional encyclopedias give us a peer-review/scholar based view.
That in itself would seem to make Wikipedia interesting and useful, simply as an alternative source of information.
The lack of referencing seems a serious problem though. Joe Bloggs may have something interesting and relevant to say, but if he hasn't backed up his content with any references, how are readers or future editors supposed to judge it? They could ask him, if he's left contact details and is still around, but otherwise...
There seems to be a distinct lack of referencing going on at Wikipedia, I think the Wikipedia community should consider changing the system so that it encourages people to indicate sources for all their content, whether their sources are other web-pages, books, articles, conversations, first hand experiences, etc.