Mmm, I'm sorry if I came off a bit touchy there. I didn't mean to. Really what I am trying to get across is that while I understand what you're getting at, and Wikipedia isn't perfect by any stretch, I think it can be useful for learning on some level, and I can see how it would be fun and useful for a self-teaching kid. I really do agree that it's not great as an ultimate authority on anything, though it may be good enough for some purposes. (But my concerns about appropriateness/safety are real... I am currently setting up my DD4's computer for internet access. If I can't figure out how to keep him to "safe" areas of Wikipedia, I will have to just block the site for now.)
Anyway, it's just one example off of the top of my head. We might agree on the self-directed learning usefulness of some other sites where the content is not user-edited. Many of them are free.
I don't think that inaccuracy is possible to get away from completely:
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2010/05/dictionary-definition-of-sipho.htmlI see inaccuracies fairly often in children's media, which I chalk up to the likelihood that both writers and editors of such stuff tend toward the less technical end of the spectrum. But I freely grant that Wikipedia, due to its basic nature, will have sections with a higher inaccuracy rate than almost any decent edited or peer-reviewed source.
