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Screenshot of Wiki-Watch rating of the article Reliability of Wikipedia rated as reliable source and additional orange WikiTrust marks for questionable edits. While experienced editors can view the article history and discussion page, for normal users it is not so easy to check whether information from Wikipedia is reliable.
As author of the Wikipedia Revolution, Andrew Lih, put it, “what would surely seem to create chaos has actually produced increasingly respected content which has been evaluated and revised by the thousands of visitors to the site over time” [2]. Still, critics claim Wikipedia is inherently unreliable because its open editing allows factual ...
An exception to this is when Wikipedia is being discussed in an article, which may cite an article, guideline, discussion, statistic or other content from Wikipedia or a sister project as a primary source to support a statement about Wikipedia (while avoiding undue emphasis on Wikipedia's role or views and inappropriate self-referencing).
Verifiability makes Wikipedia accurate and credible. Pages that lack credible sources tend to contain original research. The existence of nonverifiable pages encourages new Wikipedians to create the same (see Broken windows theory). It must be made clear that reliable sources are a requirement, not an option.
Wikipedia should not cite itself, but circular referencing and fact-laundering are possibilities if we are unaware that sources we use copy from Wikipedia. Lists are at Wikipedia:Republishers and WP:MIRRORS. Some examples that appear in Google Books and are frequently inadvertently used by editors are:
Source reliability falls on a spectrum: No source is 'always reliable' or 'always unreliable' for everything. However, some sources provide stronger or weaker support for a given statement. Editors must use their judgment to draw the line between usable and inappropriate sources for each statement.
How does the author make a living? If they work for a salary, they have an incentive to not get fired. That means if they are a professor at an established university and that's their main source of income, they have an incentive to avoid outright mendacity, since that'll get you fired.
Wikipedia is considered one of the major free open source websites, where millions can read, edit and post their views for free. Therefore Wikipedia takes the effort to provide its readers with well-verified sources. Meticulous fact-checking is an aspect of the broader reliability of Wikipedia.