"Pretty much every university professor I've had is hell-bent on wikipedia's destruction. I've even had professors threaten to fail people for using it as a reference."
I know university professors who love Wikipedia. Some even give their students the project of writing new Wikipedia articles.
That's an awesome idea for a project. I'm glad to hear that my experience might not be the norm.
Re:Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011
by austenallred on Tuesday December 27, 2011 @06:44PM
(#3397940)
Using Wikipedia and using it as a reference are two very different things. I use it as a place to find great references and to get a synopsis on a topic, like an encyclopedia was meant to be used. Having lived in the former USSR and reading a lot of encyclopedias produced by the former USSR, I would never trust an encyclopedia alone, no matter who wrote it, without sources.
While wikipedia does have some errors, most of the mistakes seem to come in the form of someone sabotaging a disliked celebrity or organization's page. In light of this, it seems to me that most of the topics a student would be likely to write about for a term paper wouldn't be affected. Universities should always allow students to use wikipedia for one of their references, but they should also hold students accountable for the information they take from it.