I'll say it up front: I like Wikipedia.
Do I trust it? Heck, no!
So what's going on here? Why would I like it if I don't trust it? I'll explain.
The problem for me is authority and how we assign it and to whom we assign it. This is a real issue in an era of Fake News. Today, we are all learning that we should not trust everything we hear on television nor everything we read on the Internet, including Wikipedia. But what about the things we read in the library or access on GALILEO? Should we believe those things? What about the things our professors teach in their classrooms? Nope. We shouldn't believe those things either--at least not without testing them for reliability and authority first.
Peer reviewed articles are not always reliable and accurate. Sometimes they tell outright lies. So how can we tell reliable fact from misleading lies?
That's what I want to teach students: how to develop a critical mind that can assess the authority and reliability of found information. Wikipedia gives me the ideal chance to do that because some of its articles are rock solid and reliable, while some of them are outrageous lies. I want you to know how to tell the difference.
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