Wikipedia

Wired has a funny article pertaining to Wikipedia. Personally, I like Wikipedia for basic information and as a good place to start any research. However, I would never take anything written there as gospel truth, and always do further research. After all, as Lore Sjoberg points out in the linked article:

Well, Wikipedia exists in a state of quantum significance flux. It's simultaneously a shining, flawless collection of incontrovertible information, and a debased pile of meaningless words thrown together by uneducated lemurs with political agendas.

When it comes to fairly concrete topics, the former is usually true. Given any topic where there is a possibility of "revisionist history", especially politically charged topics, and the latter seems to be the case. Still, it is not a bad resource for starting some research on a topic.

BTW - if you read the article, be sure the check out the comments at the bottom. Some commenters prove Mr. Sjoberg's point quite handily.