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Well, I certainly wouldn't use it without crosschecking facts ;)


Information that's either true or completely made up is usually true. So if they say "the population of X is Y", or something like that, I'll trust them.


Do you cross-check everything else?

I'm sure it depends in what capacity the information is "used", right?


Something I never understood. When referencing a "real" encyclopedia you have to include the revision number thus if information changes in later revisions your citation remains intact. Wikipedia is exactly the same. When you cite Wikipedia you should include the revision number so that if it changes (as it frequently does) you haven't lost the text referenced. Could higher change frequency provide higher mis-information? Sure but a "real" encyclopedia has the same problem (maybe at a smaller scale) So in either case you have to either pay someone to fact check (like most encyclopedia companies do and could easily be done for Wikipedia) and/or do the fact check yourself. The later being the core at Wikipedia culture^[citation needed].


Any real encyclopedias where hoaxes would not get corrected for years?

See http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/04/... - it's been featured on the main page just a few days ago.

The same article points out that the editors-to-articles ratio has been rapidly falling from 2007 to 2014 (it bounced back a little this year, but it's too early to say if it isn't just a fluke).




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