Wikipedia is definitely worth using — as I said, it has plenty of arguments on its side. But it is alarming that there is no governing authority on content. Factual information can disputed, or just tagged as disputable. I’m more than happy to abide by it, but when a friend was compiling an article for Wikipedia, he found too many people offering arbitrary criticism without concern for the information presented. That’s not just anecdotal. Type in controversial issues, and see for yourself. (Try “Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 2004.”)
Just because there are already so many skewed information resources, doesn’t mean that Wikipedia can’t take on a few methods of reform — the CNET article presented a widely respected alternative, that of Linus Torvalds. And we can all appreciate what happens when wiki goes bad, such as Daily Kos’s dKosopedia, which at least has the courtesy of noting its bias on the front page.
