Quoting geni geniice@gmail.com:
On 11/12/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/astronomers-ten.html
The scientists recommends Wikipedia to the journalist for backup of what he's saying - because we have the references listed and in place.
When citeing journals wikipedia seems to favor high impact journals to a slightly higher degree than the general scientific community.
There are a variety of reasons for that. First, lay people are more likely to be aware of high impact journals. We've all heard of Nature for example. Second, high impact journals are more likely to be easily accessible. Many Wikipedians edit from libraries or universities and those institutions will be more likely to subscribe to high impact journals. Third, high impact journals have higher search engine rankings so if one is looking for a source for something and does a google search it will more likely turn up a high impact journal.