LOL - no, I'm not being silly (well, SLIGHTLY) silly, but I got fascinated at Aria's post and went to the article she listed about Japanese archeology. And I'm afraid I suddenly lost my temper, because this is the first paragraph of that (it's OK, Aria, I know this is going off slightly on a tangent - I too, totally agree that Wiki is only a source, and often there are better ones).

But really!

Wikipedia is supposed to be the ultimate in one-stop knowledge (information) shopping. I recently looked through the content of some of the pages on the subject I know best -- Japanese archaeology. To put the conclusion first: Wikipedia is a production by armies of totally unqualified amateurs writing about, discussing and arguing about subjects they are wholly unqualified to write about, discuss or argue about. No professional would join such a disussion because his/her informed voice would be drowned out by the cacophony of uninformed voices. Trying to fix the content of a Wikipedia article would be a waste of valuable time. It would be better to make one's own web site on the subject.

I have my own web sites on history, many of us do here - some of us work with Wiki. Now, whereas I'm usually the first one to say to take Wiki with a pinch of salt - because all of us subject-lovers are amateurs, almost always - but what a snide, snitty, and downright irritating quote that is! "Armies of unqualified amateurs" - "wholly unquallified to write about, discuss or argue about" - well, that sums me up pretty well.

I totally agree with this discussion being that it's more fun to really LEARN your subject, then write the article. But I also know many professors would sneer at our attempts here to understand and share ancient history, and they are JUST the kind of irritating "we have the knowledge and you can't" types the Internet was invented for.

So although I'll occasionally criticize Wiki and those who simply cut and paste their posts and articles here, I am still proud of us all for TRYING. And I must say, many, many Wiki articles on ancient history that I've read are quite superb.