Is Wikipedia reliable?

[Mark]

You should think of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that can be edited by someone who may or may not know what s/he is talking about. It can provide a good introduction to a topic, but it should only be a starting point and should not be considered authoritative.

My only attempt to help Wikipedia came several years ago when I spent several months trying to edit an article on an historical figure about whom I am THE expert. A user kept changing my text back to what s/he had written. I finally gave up until the user was banned.

If you go to the discussion page on a Wikipedia entry, you can see the politics and ignorance that pervades some of the edits.