Wikipedia

a. What is Wikipedia?
"Wikipedia is a multilingual, Web-based encyclopedia project, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization."b. How would you answer the question posed in this piece “How reliable can a source be when anyone can edit it?”?
"The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work."
c. Who do the creators of Wikipedia place their trust in when it comes to weeding out misinformation?
They put their faith in the "wisdom of crowds," believing that by having many people watching what appears there, errors and vandalism will be weeded out, sooner rather than later.
d. Why did founder Larry Sanger leave Wikipedia?
 Mr. Sanger left Wikipedia, believing that it should give more authority to experts; he has since created another site, Citizendium that does just that.
e. What would abuse or vandalism look like on a Wikipedia page?
self-interested editing by prominent businesses and governments around the world
f. What do the statistics quoted in the third paragraph of this piece reveal?
there are currently Wikipedias in more than 280 languages, with a total of more than eight million articles. The encyclopedia is among the top 10 most-visited sites on the Internet around the world
They are obviously doing something right.
g. Why do you think Wikipedia is so successful?
I think it is successful because it was a great idea from the beginning. It is non-profit so people find it to be reliable.
h. Why might Wikipedia’s creators not want to accept advertising?
This will cheapen the validity of the site. Wikipedia is information not advertisements.
i. How does Wikiscanner help increase the reliability of Wikipedia entries?
the IP address of anonymous editors of the site to be easily checked; the tool, Wikiscanner, quickly exposed examples of self-interested editing by prominent businesses and governments around the world.