Wikipedia and truthiness

I suspect that most people have assumed that  Wikipedia  is a large, free encyclopedia with an over-fussy layout. It isn't . I quote from the Wikipedia:about page

"Because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism."

So, not a tool used by journalists then.

This brings us to the ugly word truthiness which can be defined as

"The quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts."

Wikipedia and truthiness can produce a deadly combination. Imagine if politicians had access to it...