An interesting discussion has unfolded at avva's about Wikipedia.
https://avva.livejournal.com/1539534.html
I personally think Wikipedia is a great thing.
What I have to say on the matter:
- Technical and reference ("natural science") data, which is only of interest to specialists, is often written by specialists, and nobody is going to mess it up. Its reliability there is quite sufficient to get an idea about the subject. Whether it's the fruit Lychee, Hamming codes or my hometown of Daugavpils (these being the first articles that came to mind)
2)As the number of editing participants grows, the law of quantity transitioning into quality will kick in. In the presence of blatantly incorrect data, any remotely popular article will be immediately fixed. And articles where a lot depends on the point of view are never going to be perfect anywhere or at any time anyway.