Interesting

Grading Wikipedia

'Wikipedia, the people's encyclopedia, is a multilingual, million-entry fount of knowledge from Britney to Byzantium that has lately become the elitists' favorite whipping boy.

Unreliable, they say. Easily tampered with. Incoherent. Out of control. A demolition derby of ideologies, driven by reckless amateurs and cybergeeks with too much time on their hands.

And yet, when people take time to read the Wikipedia entries on subjects where they have some experience or expertise, they are often pleasantly surprised. I have found Wikipedia to be a tremendous resource, whether I need a quick primer on the history of the Caliphate, or the name of that dog that used to star in "Frasier." Wikipedia's unpaid contributors are rapidly compiling one of the best movie databases ever, with extensive plot and character summaries of all major films, and tremendously useful linked-lists of subjects like "Best Picture Winners."

To try a more objective test than my own need to find Martin Scorsese's birthdate, The Denver Post asked five Colorado scholars to review the Wikipedia entries on Islam, Bill Clinton, global warming, China and evolution.

The results? Four out of five agreed their relevant Wikipedia entries are accurate, informative, comprehensive and a great resource for students or the merely curious.

The fifth scholar called his chosen entry "not very good," found some details to be inaccurate by omission, and said similar entries in more accepted encyclopedias like Encarta do their job better.'

Full story here.