Wikipedia Watch

Despite wanting to be cynical and wanting to find fault, I love Wikipedia and use it a lot for introductory info on a range of subjects. Despite appearing ripe for abuse, Wikipedia is remarkably reliable. There are faults, and mischievous entries, as would be expected, but given the size of Wikipedia, I reckon it is pretty good, and offers a breadth of information not available in traditional encyclopedias. It is in fact a triumph of breadth over depth, allows us to get quick information, survives on a global co-operative contribution model, and therefore does what the internet is equipped to do best.

Because Google searches so badly - if you get a million or so hits, or even 100,000, or 10,000, and if 90% of those hits are useless, how can that be efficient searching - for many questions about people, places, or events I use Google to search Wikipedia. At least then I can quickly get a bit of fairly reliable information.