Quality of information not dependent on user type says researchers.

Researchers at Dartmouth College “examined Wikipedia authors and the quality of Wikipedia content as measured by how long and how much of it persisted before being changed or corrected.” and found that the quality of the contributions was not negatively impacted by what they call “Good Samaritans,” or people who just made a one-time edit to correct a mistake.

The concept of a user editable encyclopedia is interesting to me. On one hand I find it extremely useful for looking for information about things that might not be covered in an ordinary encyclopedia. I’ve been known to look for information on things ranging in topic from RAID configurations to how many episodes of the Thundercats have ever been produced. 130 22min episodes for those of you keeping track at home. . .

On the other hand, one has to be careful to consider the source and it’s reliability when citing from, or taking knowledge from it. Lord forbid you happened to grab some info from a vandalized article prior to it’s correction.

I’m interested in hearing from the community what their experience with the online encyclopedia has been. What do you use it for? Do you use it as a primary source or a secondary source of information?