Michael Hopcroft wrote:
It is probably time we recognized that the very concept of Wikipedia -- "An encyclopedia that anyone can edit, that will become the best encyclopedia in the world" is utterly self-contradictory and therefore impossible to achieve.
It's probably a good thing we didn't recognize this was impossible before we went ahead and actually achieved it.
Seriously, by a number of quite reasonable standards Wikipedia already _has_ become the best encyclopedia in the world. It's got more breadth, it's cheaper, its IP rights are more flexible, and it's probably more widely used than the old standbys like Britannica or World Book. It even has comparable levels of accuracy. I'm very, very happy with what Wikipedia has made of itself and have no desire to throw out any bits of baby on account of the bathwater that's still mixed in with it.