• andros_rex@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    For anything that is not politically contentious, it’s very good. Even the politically contentious stuff tries to give the most “balanced”/“mainstream” interpretation usually.

    There are communities of people which hyperfixate on certain topics. Think dinosaurs and trains. If a serious Dino-head sees a mistake about the length of Diplodocus, they are going to drop everything and fix it immediately.

    I routinely check wiki sources - I’ve taught a lot of college kids that as a way to quickly find sources for papers. Most of the time, topics I know a lot about from my own educational background match what I see on wiki and cite the same kinds of sources I would use.

    It’s not perfect - there’s the infamous story of an American teenager writing all of Scots Wikipedia without knowing any Scots - but you have to respect the fact that there are a lot of people who are obsessed with certain topics and will watch their pet articles like a hawk.