[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Hinrich Schwab

Call it what you wish, Steve. I work in the education industry and Wikipedia is not accepted as a reliable source by the academic community.

I understand. My justification is based on the word of a history professor who frequents these boards, whose arguments I plagiarized myself. His comment was that no internet source is to be taken seriously, and likewise with most published books. He also commented that for internet discussions it is more than valid as long as one can verify the sources used. For true academic purposes only a fully researched and verified document will do, and you are unlikely to find any of those on the internet, especially concerning the subjects we discuss here.

Likewise, I have personally seen enough plagiarism, insufficient sourcing, overreliance on individual sources and bias in enough wiki articles to utterly reject it as a viable tertiary source.

Again I understand. On the other hand some time ago a local troll called me to account for using Wiki, yet the author of the article cited more that twenty references to the subject at hand, and a search of the 'net uncovered several other sources that verified everything in the article.

I agree that using Wiki as the sole source of information for an argument is a bad idea, but I see nothing wrong with using it as a springboard for initial information, especially if the purpose is to explore all the possible sources.

If you feel it is snobbish, then I respect your opinion even though I disagree with it vehemently.

Not that you feel that way. It was something about the way you said it that set me off. Perhaps because I didn't see it as necessary in the first place.

However, the fact of the matter is that Academia rejects Wikipedia and I do not see that changing nor do I plan on jeopardizing the viability of any of my research by using their articles. For a quick reference or an informal brief, it is sufficient. For scholastic research, Encyclopedia Britannica it is not.

Again I understand. But Subsim is not Academia, and never can be. Even now I'm reading a fascinating new source on the development of the British destroyer through the First World War, written by the most respected author on the subject, and I'm finding discrepancies and vagaries galore. Even though he cites primary sources I still question the validity of several of his assertions. If I were to write a review of the book I would have to mention that in some cases I find the older sources to be more credible. On the other hand I have no access to primary sources, so any judgement I make has to be based on what little I have, and I have to trust somebody at some point.

With that in mind I stand by my assertion that while any internet source should be taken with the proverbial grain of salt, Wiki is no worse than any other as a basic starting point, and has on many ocassions proved very helpful.