pageoneresults - 12:13 am on Jan 28, 2009 (gmt 0)

There is no authority without trust.

That is true. I do believe the numbers of those "who trust" far outweigh the numbers of those who "do not trust" the Wiki content. And that whole commercial product argument doesn't work with me. I can't remember the last time I bought something after following a link from the Wiki, I really can't.

When you have a page of information that references all the top authoritative resources on that topic, you've pretty much got a winning combination. Whether you trust it or not is your choice, that is why all the references are provided and there is superscript all over the place. There are plenty of access points to confirm the information that you are reading at the Wiki.

Sure, there are a few who have had bad experiences. Is there anything better at the moment? You have Google Knols, would you trust the content on a Knol? And back to the Wiki, don't University Staff edit there? Ya, I know there are institutions that won't accept anything from the Wiki but that is kind of hard to do these days. I would assume that most end up at the Wiki from their initial search. I know I have on many occasions. And by golly, the content I found there was pretty darn accurate. I've done quite a bit of comparison while developing my own historical pages. The Wiki is on par with being good to excellent in my view.