Jan 2023--BixLives32 (talk) 03:20, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
editWiki has become the world's default accepted encyclopaedia. —I.e., THE encyclopaedia of record for most people. However, within the world of serious academia, this is NOT true. A student attending one of the world's more venerable universities, —E.g. Oxford, Trinity, Cambridge, Erasmus, Harvard, M.I.T., The Sorbonne, Göttingen, etc., would nor more employ an entry from Wikipedia than directly lift lines from a Cliff-Notes booklet. I pray that Wikipedia will someday rival the Encyclopaedia Britannica and become worthy as a serious academic reference. As of today, however, Wikipedia, is not dependable enough to employ as an academic standard. Worse, Wiki is THE most used encyclopaedia on Earth! Amongst non academia (i.e., the "average bloke), Wikipedia is probably the most trusted encyclopaedia, —i.e., the encyclopaedia of record. I think Wiki must seriously endevour to earn its wide usage. I hope that Wiki recognises their great responsibility to make Wikipedia worthy of the misplaced trust it presently enjoys. This improvement can NOT be accomplished with more pseudo-links that look good to an editor who does nor check them. Plus, requiring links regardless of their relevance or worth is NOT going to improve Wiki articles. Suggestion; employ an automatic roving app that checks links to make sure that they are not "404s". —It's a start. You can worry about relevancy and accuracy later. I think Wiki puts far too much emphasis on required links. E.g., if I simply type "i.e." the editor automatically applies a hyperlink that goes nowhere. The Wiki inner-clique lads need to read a few age-tested, academia-respected encyclopaedias. —Yes, like Britannica! I have used Britannica for over 50 years without a SINGLE issue. E.g., If you are writing about shipping on the North Atlantic prior to 1946, a 1945 Britannica edition will serve you well. And, last I looked, there was no law against checking Wiki articles against The Encyclopaedia Britannica. In addition, basic writing standards must be embraced and enforced. —E.g., English language newspapers of any worth try to make sure that they write at approximately a 6th grade level. This might be a good place for Wiki standards to begin. Alas, this means a lot of work, so I suspect Wiki will remain something people use to settle pub wagers, and NOT a serious encyclopaedia to employ as a reference for your dissertation.