Back in June I wrote a post on Wikipedia’s fairly rapid rise over the last two years in the credibility stakes … about how it is even being cited as a source by Aunty ABC (Australia’s government-backed broadcaster, for my overseas readers). Well, it has risen even higher than that now. Yesterday, the minister conducting a funeral service I was attending said during his address “If you look up Wikipedia ….”. I was so stunned that I barely heard the rest of his message! I did manage to gather, though, that what I would find in Wikipedia was that, globally, over 200,000 leprosy cases were registered in 2006. Don’t ask me what lepers had to do with the funeral service, except that it was something to do with gratitude!
Now, my question to you is, how much higher can Wikipedia go!?
Whispering Gums 
I loooooooooove Wikipedia. I like the fact that it’s an encyclopedia with Australian entries in it. – because all the other encylopedias I have ever used exclude us, except for token entries here and there.
Yes, absolutely yes …. and YOU can improve that!!! Hurry up and retire.
Thanks to you Sue I don’t have any Wiki-phobia anymore and happily look there as a linked reference, hence my lovely journey around the concept of ‘neoteny’.
No wonder you were startled!
Well, good for you! And thanks for the thanks! It sort of links in with my bookgroup’s book – tonight – Marion Halligan’s Valley of Grace which focuses quite a lot on babies (but in a different way).
Interesting to see its growing acceptability. It still isn’t considered an sufficiently reliable source for those of us who write textbooks, but it is often a very useful source for ideas and links to more acceptable sources.
Yes, I agree that it shouldn’t be cited in itself for textbooks any more, really, than you would cite any encyclopedia but, as I wrote in my first two posts on the topic (https://whisperinggums.wordpress.com/2009/06/01/notes-from-a-wikipedian/ and https://whisperinggums.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/using-wikipedia/), there are useful ways of assessing it and of using it. You’ve clearly sussed that out!!