Wikipedia's good for casually looking things up - if I'm curious about something, that's the first place to go. There is vandalism, astroturfing, articles written to make a particular person, company or organization look good, etc. so things from Wikipedia should be taken with a grain of salt.

If I'm doing more serious research, I'll use Wikipedia to find sources, and then use the sources directly, along with other sources I may find with Google or (gasp) offline in a library. That usually gets me enough accurate, reliable information to get me going.

Exactly my thoughts, its a quick place to find REAL sources and cite them easily. I also enjoy looking up random things on there too. I have a grudge against them though...they stole Pagerank 1 from my site

Being an occasional contributor at Wikipedia, and knowing one of the Wiki Admins, and given my own experiences, I implicitly trust the academic integrity of Wikipedia.

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What he said.

People that think that the only thing wikipedia is good for is false information are delusional.

Lots of schools thnk this way, and so ban wikipedia.They just do so since anyone can contribute. How not smart is that...

Extreme Coder

As a student at Brown University, I can tell you we almost unequivocally jump to Wikipedia as a starting point. Sure there is misinformation out there, but most of that is easy to catch. There is no better resource if you want to get a quick idea about a subject (much like people used Encyclopedias for in the past), and I often end up clicking through source links to learn more about the subject. Actually, with humanities/social science, the description of theories, etc., is typically quite good. With science, I find the articles to be either too in depth or too broad, but the sources are often quite useful, and if nothing else, I gain a better sense of what I should be searching for if my initial query didn't quite bring up what I was looking for.

Overally, I give Wikipedia a huge thumbs up and I only wish that I contributed more to this fantastic resource.

Honestly, who uses an encyclopedia to do much more than get a basic grasp/figure out what it is you should be looking into on a topic? Wikipedia is great for just that function...

Wikipedia is my main information source. There have been some pranks, but they're generally noticeable and I will just revert the changes. What could I do without Wikipedia?

i think it is a very good source,it gives me most of the answers i go looking for.a few false leads but didnt take long to sort them out.

I'm exactly the same way. For general, conversational use, Wikipedia is great. For things like medical advice or scientific theories (not that I look up those very much) I'd rather go to webMD or a university site.

The Peter North page that showed up on Digg recently is a very bad example of what can happen in a user-moderated resource, but it hasn't stopped me from using Wikipedia nearly every day.

Wikipedia is one of the greatest examples of a community project in action. I think the FOSS community could learn a thing or two from that damn wiki.

Many pranks are corrected swiftly. Disagreements on a topic rarely get out of hand, and the project continues to march on well.

We have so many camps and progress is starting to stall a bit. Here are some of the fights we divide over...FSF v OSI, vi v emacs, GNOME v KDE, etc.

I can't see how "proper" encyclopaedias are any more reliable then wiki, the world is always changing and wiki does a great job providing the most current information, so let's not forget its strength.

I love Wikipedia and use it all the time for looking things up for personal use. Like, if I see something I want to know more about I'd look it up at wikipedia instantly. However for schoolwork etc I don't think it's a good source. I mean, it's not even a source, you can't say what the information came from (except for when it actully tells you what source it is).

Good resource, horrible source.

I will add one more voice to the general theme of this thread. Wiki is great. Every time I have something I want to know more about I immediately go to wikipedia. It would not apply to any serious research that I would do because I work on things that are too specific to be in wikipedia.

I use Wikipedia, on average, about five times a day (give or take). It's my source of reference for everything! Like i wanted to know when Shrek the Third was out in the UK - Wikipedia! Organising music, i wonder if it's spelt T.Rex, T-Rex or T Rex... Wikipedia! I love that website

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned that, even though most people won't accept wikipedia as a resouce, the source list at the bottom of each article is priceless! You can get sources from the wikipedia articles. It's always my first stop for information, and frequently I never have to go any farther than the source list.

I said it, sorta, buried in a paragraph above
It is quite true, the sources are quite invaluable.

I think that Wikipedia is nice as an encyclopedia. But it cannot be used for scientific purposes. It lacks depth, detail and example's variety. Instead it offers brief definitions of many terms in almost every aspect in life.
My teachers are rather against using Wikipedia. They still insist on the real books. Too bad for me, because I find it easier to do a search in an engine.

I use Wikipedia all the time. I find it has a lot of interesting information. I've read articles that have said it's not too reliable, but I usually don't use it for any type of research. I usually just use it to browse and kill time.

AS a fellow student, I agree. Wikipedia is an EXCELLENT resource. As one of my lecturers said: "If you are stupid enough to cite Wikipedia as one of your sources, you will get zero for that reference."

Notice she didn't say that we were not allowed to use it, just that we were not allowed to cite it.

I also think that Wikipedia performs a wonderful service to society, bringing university level knowledge within reach of anyone (who can read).