Wikipedia was not always a paradox — does it work? Sometimes. In theory? In practice? And no, it doesn't work all the time, and no, you shouldn't trust it completely. For all critical information you should double check what you read here with other relvant and sources.

I've watched with amusement as Wikipedia and the Wikipedia editing process has evolved. And as a source of "facts" there has been a few moments of frustration when I find some errors when I'm doing fact-checking or completely lack information. Some of the issues I seem to have with Wikipedia are:

• Missing info and/or scant info
• Poorly written info
• Vandalism and copyright violations

However, I have to admit that the vast majority of articles look properly formatted considering the number of editors involved. Clicking "random page" repeatedly will get you a few clunkers, but most pages are at least a decent starter article, many on things Britannica will never touch.

The subjects I contribute on seem to be very scant. So I hope after I've expanded and tinkered with them, they will provide other users and contributers with a baseline to even further expand on them. It boils down to quality. It's astonishing to look at the current Wikipedia statistics and to think that it's all thanks to users and contributors! What an amazing thing this crazy system has with openness produced.

Wikipedia did not exist prior to 2001, and now has almost two million articles in English alone. Although the results are impressively good, and getting better, it requires a dedicated core of editors to keep it going that way, or it will get overwhelmed by the unverified and misleading information. So far, I'm impressed with the level of checks in place but it's mindwarping to imagine where Wikipedia will be a decade of two from now.

Knowledge should be free. However with that freedom, comes the need and demand for willingness to take on the Wikipedia challenge. It is a known fact that the are millions of people out there with billions of true, verifiable, hard-learned and hard-earned facts in their heads, and at least some of them are delighted to share if asked — especially if it's easy for them to do, and doesn't require a huge commitment.