Wow!  I just saw tonight's news article on Wikipedia that played on FOX News.  (Earlier, I'd posted here the AP article on Wikipedia from Dec 12, 2005.)

In what has become a huge coincidence, the very day the media begins reporting on the dangers of Wikipedia, happens to be the day immediately after the very week I discovered misinformation and falsehoods being posted on this page about nitrites, and then tried to edit them by attempting to add more accurate information, but then was attacked and harassed by another person who disagrees with my edits  and was ultimately blocked and threatened by a purported Wikipedia administrator.

As was reported in the news today, people can go to http://www.wikipedia-watch.org/ to learn more about how Wikipedia functions, and where the dangers exist.

The folks at wikipediawatch report that, what's happening in Wikipedia, is that any collection of citations that may APPEAR balanced is all that anybody expects. If the title or snippet in a link itself contributes to this impression, then the full text is not researched by anyone.

This is exactly what has been going on in this nitrite page.  As a result, it truly is, as wikipediawatch reminds us, "garbage in, garbage out, garbage back in..."  and after a few cycles of this, it all turns into " a big, stinking heap".

Truly, as the news media warned today: "Don't believe eveyrthing you read on the Web, especially on Wikipedia!"

The following two posts, found in a wikipediareview blog, sum up my experiences this past week, after having been harassed, threatened and finally blocked, after I attempted to add to the body of knowledge about nitrites/poppers.  They demonstrate how dangerous Wikipedia  based on its current model  really is:

"Wikipedia's procedural faults, complete anarchy as regards contributions, and sometimes-bizzare social rules do not teach people to become good researchers or writers... it teaches them how to be good Wikipedians, or to get the hell out." - Jason Scott
". . . when it comes to history and politics, Wikipedia can claim whatever it wants by shutting out those who actually know something about a certain topic. In that way, Wikipedia can rewrite history as it sees fit - which may have nothing to do with reality or the actual facts." - SummerFR

Finally, this post on a board, discussing wikipedia, really sets it out well:

"Any moron can pretty well say anything they want on any topic, which is fine for a News Group or a Forum but not an Encyclopedia.

In my opinion a reference source should be authoritative enough to end arguments not start them.

I believe that Wikipedia could better serve the internet community if they checked their facts first before publishing the article.

Instead, we have a situation where the cart is placed before the horse and we end up with what is left by the horse."

Nuf said.