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Wikipedia is not a reliable source for citations elsewhere on Wikipedia, or as a source for copying or translating content. As a user-generated source , it can be edited by anyone at any time, and any information it contains at a particular time could be vandalism , a work in progress , or simply incorrect.
Not least in articles about Why Wikipedia is not so great which by no means reflect all the Wikipedia:Criticisms that qualified people have levied on it. Similarly, fanatical or ignorant users adhering to generally good rules to Wikipedia:avoid self-references and Wikipedia:Redirects have failed to recognize the few places where these are in ...
Wikipedia is not a place to publish your own thoughts and analyses or new information. Per the policy on original research, do not use Wikipedia for any of the following: Primary (original) research, such as proposing theories and solutions, communicating original ideas, offering novel definitions of terms, coining new words, etc.
However, citation of Wikipedia in research papers may be considered unacceptable because Wikipedia is not a reliable source. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Many [ 4 ] colleges and universities, as well as public and private secondary schools, have policies that prohibit students from using Wikipedia as their source for doing research papers, essays, or ...
Wikipedia should not cite itself, but circular referencing and fact-laundering are possibilities if we are unaware that sources we use copy from Wikipedia. Lists are at Wikipedia:Republishers and WP:MIRRORS. Some examples that appear in Google Books and are frequently inadvertently used by editors are:
Two radically different versions of the Wikipedia biography Klee Irwin (now deleted) [1] presented to the public within days of each other: Wikipedia's susceptibility to edit wars and bias is an issue often raised by the project's critics.
However, it seems that instructors have underestimated the use of Wikipedia in academia because of these concerns. Researchers and academics contend that while Wikipedia may not be used as a 100 percent accurate source for final papers, it is a valuable jumping off point for research that can lead to many possibilities if approached critically.
That aspect is not a settled matter and is only part of why we do not recommend its use "as a source". We do not think it is good "as a source" because it's crowdsourced, and we apply that metric to everything that is crowdsourced, even if they are always 100% perfectly accurate.