[EDIT: this is actually the FIRST post in this thread, but due to the origins of this thread in the parallel thread mentioned in the next paragraph, it seems to have automigrated to its current location.]

In another thread in this subforum (see "Ameliorating miseducation at BAUT and similar public discussion fora"), I stated that I have two concerns, based upon occasional lurking at BAUT over the past year, plus one week of posting here. I explained my first concern in that thread.

My second concern, closely related to the first, is that many posters cite Wikipedia articles and appear to believe that Wikipedia constitutes a reliable source of information. This is simply not true even as a first approximation. The reasons for this are manifold and far too complex to attempt to explain here, but let me point out that I was one of the most active editors in the physics pages at Wikipedia in 2006 (in fact at one point I was ranked as the 444th most active Wikipedian), so I know the Wikipedia physics articles, Wikipedia culture and Wikipedia's technical/software environment very well. Thus, my characterization of Wikipedia as inherently unstable and unreliable and vulnerable to politically motivated "slant" and to unrestricted propogation of misinformation (intentional or otherwise) cannot be glibly dismissed as being based upon inexperience at Wikipedia, or upon lack of sympathy with the goals of the Open Information movement, since as should be clear neither of these are the case.

As I noted in the parallel thread:

Someone mentioned the problem of knowing what you are citing when you cite Wikipedia. One basic step when you visit a page like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice is to click on "Permanent Link" at left under "toolbox" (at least, as the site is designed in April 2008) which gives you the url http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...ldid=205396832 which is the current version as I write this paragraph. FWIW, my own advice on how students can use Wikipedia is to list possible key words which they can then search on at their public or university library, which most likely offers an on-line searchable catalog. I also urge all high school teachers to insist upon designing and teaching a course on the many pitfalls of using the web as an "information resource". It's shocking that apparently the National Academies and similar organizations apparently have not designed possible curricula for such a course, so appearently teachers will need to rely upon their own initiative and experience. My other technology-related advice to pre-college teachers is to urge all your students to learn to touch-type.

No doubt everyone with teaching experience is chuckling knowingly over the war stories related by dgruss23 (yeah, we've been there!), but to judge from some comments above, someone will probably rake you over the coals for expressing frustration that your students aren't paying closer attention to your good advice. After all, their opinion, some will say, is just as good as yours, even when that opinion concerns the nature of your professional expertise, teaching and learning!

Yes, Wikipedia fanatics often cite the math articles, which indeed often appear very impressive, and the best ones really do approach the level of Britannica articles--- at least, until someone munges good work by making ill-considered, ignorant, or malicious changes. Unfortunately (I could provide a hundred examples but feel this is neither the time or place for that level of detail), these fans don't realize that many of these articles are imbalanced, seriously misleading, contain misstatements, and suffer from other problems such as internally inconsistent notation/terminology, inadequate linking to related articles, "edit creep", and so on. In addition, there are more out and out cranky "math-related" WP articles than most people would probably guess. And the state of the "physics-related" articles is even worse.

Yay! You quoted my meme! (From my draft essays on "wikishilling" and other woes of Wikipedia, which were formerly available in my Wikipedia user pages.)

Every week, it seems, some crank creates a new WP article touting his own cranky theory. Many such attempts to misleadingly portray fringe or cranky ideas as mainstream show some cunning, such as embedding discussion of the crank theory within the context of "other theories". It's easy for an expert to spot, but almost impossible for non-experts to recognize, as is seen when bad articles come up for AfD and non-physicists say they don't understand why anyone would object.