Wikipedia used to be untrusted. Anyone can put anything there! Now teachers rather see wikipedia than AI bullshit.
As a longtime contributor to Wikipedia, the teachers were categorically correct. 2000s Wikipedia was, broadly, a trashfire where citations were mostly an afterthought and there really weren’t standards. Some of the most bare minimum standards that make Wikipedia actually functional weren’t codified until c. 2006 and took easily over a decade to really take hold culturally. And unfortunately, the popularization of Wikipedia made the late 2000s pretty bad too; whereas the early 2000s were a largely benign wild west, the late ones saw a flood of near-unfiltered garbage that’s still being cleaned up today.
I’d still say not to trust Wikipedia today and use its sources instead for anything even slightly consequential, but back in peak Wikipedia scare days, “use its sources” was very often a nonstarter.
As a longtime contributor to Wikipedia, the teachers were categorically correct. 2000s Wikipedia was, broadly, a trashfire where citations were mostly an afterthought and there really weren’t standards. Some of the most bare minimum standards that make Wikipedia actually functional weren’t codified until c. 2006 and took easily over a decade to really take hold culturally. And unfortunately, the popularization of Wikipedia made the late 2000s pretty bad too; whereas the early 2000s were a largely benign wild west, the late ones saw a flood of near-unfiltered garbage that’s still being cleaned up today.
I’d still say not to trust Wikipedia today and use its sources instead for anything even slightly consequential, but back in peak Wikipedia scare days, “use its sources” was very often a nonstarter.