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The issue boils down to user submitted content. Which means any specific entry in Wikipedia will run hot or cold in relation to it’s accuracy and there is no way of telling what you are going to get, so random sampling will not give a valid assessment.
For example … I have read a wonderful entry on metallurgy (I do a lot of metal work as a hobbyist and remanufacture armor). I have however found entries like the one on “Knight-errant” which tells you this term “indicates how the knight-errant would typically wander the land”. This is incorrect. Knight-errant is a knight that has no direct tie to the rest of the nobility, which he would have had through swearing fealty. Typically knights-errant were landless.
I could give you examples like this all day, both good and bad.
I do not have the time or the inclination to sit here and page through the countless user submitted entries that are factually incorrect. Most authorities on any given subject don’t either. Additionally, many authorities, be it as academics or otherwise, have their own web resources to go to so they don’t tend to bother with Wikipedia when they have already made the information available on the web.
But if you really want to develop an opinion that is well researched, at some point you will have to get off of the web and into a library or spend some money on your own books.
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