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"And you'd never find Wikipedia cited in peer-reviewed articles published by members of the academy"

Ahem, never is a very strong word, I think you will see two citations here, albeit as examples of what is found:

Investigations into Trust for Collaborative Information Repositories: A Wikipedia Case Study

ftp://www-ksl.stanford.edu/pub/KSL_Reports/KSL-06-05.pdf

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By the way: I've seen quite a few citations of Wikipedia from serious papers in stats. So it's certainly far from unheard of.

Tom Holden
Treasurer, Wikimedia UK

I'm always intrigued that when collaborative knowledge stores are mentioned, Wikipedia is always the first on lips. Everything2 was a major forerunner, and it's node-based structure hasn't been repeated often... which is sortof a shame, as it's a fascinating (and sometimes very intriguing) way of doing things, allowing everyone to write and everyone to put up opposing (and sometimes rather silly, for comic relief) variations on the same theme.

Not to mention that browsing Everything2 is much more fun: on Wikipedia clicking the random button only occasionally turns up treasures, but on Everything2 you can go from dog to why Americans are ironically challenged in just a few steps...

'This digital utopia has actually taken has led it towards something a little more structured, a little more elitist, a little more bourgeoisie.'

Given there has never been a successful, long-lasting egalitarian society at any-time in history, why expect the Web to be any different?

I understand that Wikipedia took the step of taking 'it upon themselves to own certain portions of data content, making it difficult for newcomers to put their personal spins on the content in the online encyclopaedia' to stop the cranks, pranksters and those with axes to grind from doing exactly that. Of course everyone (or most) believe themselves to be wholly sane and to hold knowledge and views that are denied others, but a line has to be drawn somewhere by someone.

'University departments generally have policies that they won't accept references from Wikipedia in their students' submissions. I don't necessarily agree with these edicts, but they are in place.'

That's because Wikipedia has errors (Gasp!) I have a reasonable working knowledge of at least one field and my opinion is: It gives information without citing where it comes from (it tries, but not everything is cited), it cites information based on out of date articles that have been superseded by later research and on occasion it just gets things wrong. If the author of it published it as a book it's the kind of error an informed reviewer would draw to a reader's attention to; those that don't know the subject wouldn't notice it otherwise.

Why would Universities dislike Wikipedia? Because any scientific entries are supposed to be based on published research and scientists, but student scientists are supposed to get to know and keep up with the literature in their field, and cite that. I'm sure many entries are written by knowledgeable people that really understand the nuances of their field, but they are writing comparatively short encyclopaedia entries about topics that are better understood by reading dozens of paper and books on the subject.

As you also point out about Wikipedia: 'what is presented is not an objective truth (if there indeed can ever be one) because information is not neutral'. That's why Universities etc want students to look more deeply at the topics (and evidence) and form their own conclusions and hypothesises, or at least develop a case for them.

I won't say that it has no use, and some types of entry are better than others - or lend themselves to a more 'hard fact' approach.
It can be a starting-point, but it can also then remain an end-point; people don't then read more widely to get breadth and depth of knowledge and views. For the general public that's fine, at least they demonstrate some intellectual curiosity, but I expect more from those studying a subject in education, or professionally.

'And you'd never find Wikipedia cited in peer-reviewed articles published by members of the academy.'
I would only expect it if the information is not available elsewhere; offhand I can't think of a situation where that would arise, (perhaps the Wikipedians could enlighten me of any such circumstance); if Wikipedia is quoting a source then cite that (bearing in mind the above). Even so I'd consider it either lazy or showing a lack of in depth knowledge of the literature.

In response to the above contributions, I would would like to offer the following point of view.

With regard to academic referencing, @jayfurneaux points out that It [wikipedia] can be a starting-point, but it can also then remain an end-point; people don't then read more widely to get breadth and depth of knowledge and views. I agree, though take a slightly different approach when considering Wikipedia in the academic discussion.

If a given wikipedia article is to be considered a pre-draft, collaborative effort in pursuit of producing an authoritative text then it can be framed correctly. It is then can be rightly considered a starting point, but should not be referenced as this would be akin to referencing a set of notes to write a paper. Therefore, with regard to referencing in academic works, I too hasten to disagree with Kotoski, but would provide cautious limitation upon use.

Firstly, papers which discuss wikipedia directly, obviously have to reference wikipedia. Secondly, where no other information resource exists, the writer should (carefully) refer to the site but almost anecdotally wherever possible due to the very dynamic and often contentious nature of the document. Fortunately, version histories and services such as waybackmachine (at archive.org) make the dynamic nature of the web a bit easier for formal writing. However, the argument that individuals own certain portions of this changing content must be refuted.

Much of the resources available to the web community, including wikipedia, is near peer-to-peer by design. No individual owns any content any more than anybody else does. Granted, people change content frequently to suit their view (the Elvis pages as case in point), but they are able to change the content just as any other user is. However, as has been pointed out, the resource owners remain the ultimate information controller. As such, users experience an extra layer of governance, like parents to bickering children.

The working Group on Internet Governance in 2005 defined three layers of governance: society, business and government. In terms of wikipedia, this translates to: users, wikipedia (or ISPs) and government. Because of the restrictions imposed by these layers - including between users - the utopian ideal of wikipedia being a free for all, collaborative resource, is far from true. Users, ISPs, laws and societal norms restrict actions and sharing of information. Copyright issues loom large on wikipedia as do the restrictions imposed by the IWF. These are not necessarily wrong, but restrict the freedom and a democratisation of information and knowledge.

Despite its limitation, through retention of a strong libertarian ideal, enforcement of proper referencing, and an active community, wikipedia can continue to form a basis of knowledge which remains open and becomes slowly more accurate. It is this accuracy which will shout down the masses of normative and biased content.

I read somewhere that the reason that crowds were wise was that with a large random group of people, there was a larger chance of having an expert amongst them. ;)
While guessing the weight of a cow is a useful application of crowd sourcing, making decisions during brain surgery is not.
There is still a place for experts in our society, which I think is Jimmy Wales point.

Crowds are famous for things other than wisdom - for example financial bubbles, MMR autism scares, and lynch mobs.

I've always been a fan of H2G2. :)

Is an American Internet entrepreneur best known for founding Wikipedia.org, as well as other wiki-related organizations, including the charitable organization Wikimedia Foundation, and the for-profit...
Pedro Joaquin Sanchez Belmar