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The reliability of Wikipedia and its volunteer-driven and community-regulated editing model, ... This suggests that the accuracy of Wikipedia is high. However, the ...
However, although Wikipedia articles are tertiary sources, Wikipedia employs no systematic mechanism for fact-checking or accuracy. Thus, Wikipedia articles (and Wikipedia mirrors) in themselves are not reliable sources for any purpose (except as sources on themselves per WP:SELFSOURCE). Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately.
The following presents a non-exhaustive list of sources whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed. This list summarizes prior consensus and consolidates links to the most in-depth and recent discussions from the reliable sources noticeboard and elsewhere on Wikipedia.
The average Wikipedian on English Wikipedia is (1) a man, (2) technically inclined, (3) formally educated, (4) an English speaker (native or non-native), (5) white, (6) aged 15–49, (7) from a nominally Christian country, (8) from an industrialized nation, (9) from the Northern Hemisphere, and (10) likely employed as an intellectual rather ...
All four can affect reliability. Base articles on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Source material must be published, on Wikipedia meaning made available to the public in some form. [f] Unpublished material is not considered reliable. Use sources that directly support the material ...
For example, books on relativity in physics for high school students may be questionable but the one written in the 1950s by Albert Einstein [3] was reliable in its time [4] because the author, as a leading scholar in the field, was qualified to ensure its accuracy. What Wikipedia's reliability guideline requires is that, when an editor wants ...
Wikipedia addresses this concern with internal, continuous review of new edits. Encyclopedia editors also examine accuracy in the entry Reliability of Wikipedia, compiling the results of international third-party assessments across various disciplines. The consensus: the encyclopedia is as accurate as other encyclopedias.
So Wikipedia:Verifiability is a major help towards the accuracy goal, but does not alone guarantee it. Re-wording with attribution is a way to convert an inaccurate or subjective statement to an accurate one. For example: "The US never landed on the moon" is inaccurate, "John Smith said that the US never landed on the moon." could be accurate.