We should stop using Wikipedia

[Eleatic Guest]

My guide to using wikipedia,
If it has a "this article does not cite resources" message at the top, one of the categories at the bottom is "articles lacking resources", or it says "this section needs views from an expert tags before sections, don't trust it. I'm not saying that it makes it automaticaly untrue, but you should find anopther rescource.

I think you need to refine this a bit: if an article lacks references to RECENT literature, it stinks. Example: the article on Cyrus the Great, which is essentially hijacked by a group of Iranian nationalists, who want the great king to be some sort of enlightened despot (an idea that existed when the late shah ruled Iran) and remove all references to recent literature, which shows that Cyrus was not an illuminated ruler and perhaps not even an Iranian. The Wiki mechanism ensures that well-known knowledge supersedes the results of recent research.

Hijacking Wikpedia articles is really a problem because the side which has more time and energy ressources (usually the numerically larger one) will ultimately determine the thrust and contents of the article. And discussions on talk page are, when all is said and done, in the end mere voting mechanisms thinly veiled as "reaching consensus".

Since I am editing in WP, I have adopted an attitude which does not accept any fact at Wikipedia, unless proven elsewhere. WP can only provide preliminary, provisional 'facts' as first step for research elsewhere.