STUDY EVALUATES WIKIPEDIA CONTENT

According to a research study published in the journal Nature, Wikipedia compares favorably with the Encyclopedia Britannica in the accuracy of its information despite recent criticisms of its content and methods. The Nature study compared articles from both Web sites on a wide range of topics, asking field experts to review the accuracy of the entries.

Serious errors (such as misunderstandings of vital concepts) were evenly distributed between the two encyclopedias, with four serious errors each. As for errors of fact, omissions, or misleading text, Wikipedia had 162 such errors and Britannica had 123. The study is the first to use peer review to compare the accuracy of the two sources' coverage of science.

Silicon.com, 16 December 2005
http://networks.silicon.com/webwatch/0,39024667,39155109,00.htm