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Academically it's not considered trustworthy because "anyone can make edits to it".
Functionally, it's one of the best sources of information there is, period.
It's not perfect - malicious actors can indeed make fraudulent entries; but I've only seen a real example of that once, and it was corrected super fast.
If ever in doubt, every page lists its sources, so you can always get your info directly from those... and back to academics: while it's generally taboo to cite Wikipedia directly, you can cite the same pages Wikipedia does as an easy work around.
Yup! Back in my college days, my English professor said we could use Wikipedia, but we had to trace sources all the way back to their origin, preferably a physical publication if possible. Meaning if Wikipedia cited a source that cited another source, you had to cite that source. That's just how academia works!
Sorry that’s not how academia works. Your prof may have given you that proviso but that’s not standard operating procedure for scientific study. Think about it, then we’d all be citing the same 10 papers forever.
I remember when I was doing a paper on Al Capone in elementary school and I was using Wikipedia. In the part about his youth there was this gem: "Like every teenager he liked to jerk off." Gave me a chuckle. Also, removing it was my first and only contribution to Wikipedia.
My favorite example of fake entries was the guy who just made Missouri slightly bigger on its page every time he got drunk