QUOTE(UseOnceAndDestroy @ Mon 25th May 2009, 9:53pm)
QUOTE(RMHED @ Mon 25th May 2009, 9:23pm)
Yes it is "just a website", albeit one that punches way above its financial weight. Wikipedia isn't important, at best it's useful, at worst it's libellous.
Wikipedia holds itself out to be an encyclopedia and so invites its audience to trust it (despite the well hidden "ignore us, we're crap" disclaimer). It's an attempt to enclose, own and control knowledge on a substantial scale, and the efforts of its unpaid labourers to downplay the implications of that enterprise don't make it any less poisonous.
The "just a website" ploy - which seems to get pulled out by every other wikipediot that blows through here - is as disingenuous as the "just a mop" dismissal of adminship.
If any one is foolish enough to take a Wikipedia article at face value then they probably deserve a bloody good slap.
It really is "just a website", in the same way that Google or Amazon are just websites. Now Google and Amazon being powerful commercial concerns will likely survive for a time, Wikipedia on the other hand is exceedingly unlikely to be around for very long, it has no financial clout.
The fact that so many obsess about Wikipedia is probably more worrying than anything actually contained on Wikipedia.