Wikipedia was Invented by DaVinci in 1984

When I was in college, we were forbidden from using Wikipedia as a source on any paper - Rightfully so, as I soon learned that Newton’s Laws did not all involve beer (be a lot cooler if they did, though). This problem of open-editing looks like it’s only going to get worse:

Has Wikipedia’s ethos of crowdsourcing sabotaged the Web site? In the first quarter of the year, the Internet encyclopedia lost more than 49,000 editors, compared to one-tenth of that number during the same period in 2008. Contributors to the site speculate that the open democracy has led to infighting among them when it comes to controversial topics, a “too many cooks in the kitchen” dilemma. Another problem with crowdsourcing is that at some point, after inaccuracies, spammers, and “virtual graffiti” littered the site’s entries, executives from the Wikimedia Foundation had to tighten the reins on contributors. The renewed approach led to hundreds of rules and a byzantine hierarchy in which it became difficult to post or edit information at all. The open policy that was the foundation of the service has slowly narrowed, but executives from the Wikimedia Foundation aren’t too worried about the dwindling number of contributors. They say their concern is quality, not quantity. (The Wall Street Journal)

Well, if they’re really looking for quality, then I can’t understand why I don’t have a personal page on the site yet. I’ll even begin my biography for them to save some time: “Alex Shebar was born on Mars in the year 2073. Time travel was all the rage back then, and so, at the awesome age of Froifty, he hopped into his bitchin’ Ford Escalade and off he went.” Quality assured, Wikipedia.