After reading the three articles and listening to the two podcasts about wikipedia, I have come to the conclusion that wikipedia is not a reliable source. I think wikipedia is a great resource for your own personal interest. I use it all the time on topics I am interested in, but I would never use it in a research paper or to claim something was true. The reason I would not is because any average person can access that website and make changes regardless if they are factual changes or not.
Virgil Griffith invented the wikiscanner, which gives access to everyone to find out who submits changes on wikipedia.org. The websites I read informed me that a lot of big companies edit their wikipedia information so that they look better and don't have any bad comments about them that would mess up their public image. I understand that it's the free right for anyone to add on to the wikipedia encyclopedia, but when people are editing the truth I don't think the website remains accurate or truthful.
The only way I would use wikipedia information would be to use the reference page and locate who wrote what. Personally, I do not trust the wikipedia website enough to use this website to write a paper or present the information to a class. However, I see no harm in using the website for your own personal research that will not be presented as a truthful site to other people.
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