The history department there recently adopted a policy declaring, in part, that “Wikipedia is not an acceptable citation, even though it may lead one to a citable source.”
The policy was the brainchild of Neil Waters, professor of history, whose opinion of Wikipedia is rather nuanced. “In fact, I use it myself,” he said of Wikipedia in an e-mail. “But it is a useful beginning point that can point to better-vetted sources, or suggest possible research topics. …. It cannot serve as the end of the research process, and it cannot stand as an authoritative citation.”
Me:
[Wikipedia’s] design invites socialist revision ? not to mention contributions from kooks, cranks and pranksters of all stripes (that is to say, it suffers from the same design flaw as taxpayer-supported “free” news sites open to “citizen journalists” to get around a presumptive “corporate bias”). Of course, someone may come along afterward and challenge or edit the kooks’ contributions, but in the interim readers not well-versed in the subject (presumably those include most of the readers; otherwise, why consult an encyclopedia?) would be misled. …
I would therefore be exceedingly cautious about using Wikipedia as a source for anything; at best it could be used as a starting point for investigation into a topic.
More Locker Room discussion of Wikipedia is viewable here.
