Wikipedia also has a very stark, old-fashioned appearance. The addition of Wikipedia’s “Creative Commons” licenses makes it well nigh impossible to add a photo to any article, due to red tape surrounding permissions of copyright and re-use of the images. For celebrities, this means that a nice-looking, hard working actor or musician might get their photo deleted, whereas Osama Bin Laden has a (poor quality) mugshot. This is largely due to supe-editor nerds with names like Hullabaloo Wildenstern III, who have Wiki awards on their user pages, and have somehow entered the upper hierarchy of the Wikipedia Hivemind. They just go around deleting things whenever they feel like it.

What with articles being deleted for lack of notability, and pictures being deleted without warning regardless of quality or how hard the editor worked to get permission, Wikipedia has become a shell of its former self and the very paragon of everything it claims not to be. Avoid it like the plague.

Essentially there seems to be a couple of views on information in Wikipedia.
1) The strict Encyclopedia version where all information should be referenced, irrefutable and censored by the editors according to strict guidelines, templates and as mentioned above a public consensus that may be biased according to the editors cultural and country background.

2) The more open version where any useful information about a subject is included, unless obviously false of course. There really is no problem in including all potentially useful information, as long as the information is tagged according to reliability.

These strategies represent different people and views that are at odds with each oter. The first category place great value on a smaller but technically correct content – while the second category places more value on including the lesser known facts about a subject.

Personally I think the first category belongs in books, while the second is more suitable for research purposes – and that is certainly my number one reason for using Wikipedia at all.

Additionally some editors may in effect be hired to author/edit/delete information much like the current lobbying activities of commercial or political interests. There is no good way currently to confirm or resolve such “hidden agendas”.