To preface the first problem, let me say as a recent graduate that everybody and their mother knows that you can't use Wikipedia as a source for the paper you're writing. The reason is usually that "Anyone can edit" means everyone can and does edit, both the knowledgeable and the knowledge-less, making all information heresay unless there's a DIFFERENT source providing that same information. The minute non-referenced information gets on Wikipedia, it is either deleted instantaneously OR footnoted with a blue question mark and a snarky, rhetorical [says who?] or [maybe not?]. (Gone are the days where [citation needed] would suffice to put the unwashed and opinionated masses in their place.) Wikipedia can't stand to be a source in and of itself.
My first problem with Wikipedia involves the bureaucracies related to this unreferenced material. As a frequenter of social media websites, I like to use text-based "smilies," particularly those made with Asian characters, referred hereinafter as emoji. Not long ago I had the "emoticon/emoji" page on Wikipedia bookmarked so I could make frequent use of the extensive collection of emoji chronicled there. Lo and behold, one day I returned to the page to discover my treasure trove of emoji were gone, replaced by exactly three "Western" smilies - :), :( and ;).
A quick visit to the "discussion" tab of the entry revealed an extensive battle of wits: a self-righteous moderator had removed all of the emoticons which did not have some form of reference page or source material, claiming the rest to be hearsay and useless to the integrity of the article. A barrage of disgruntled users had railed against the moderator, claiming such things as "sources for emoticons, like forums and irc, often die quickly" and "the very nature of smilies precludes their usage in any scholarly source" and "emoji are often made up on the spot; their sources are myriad, fluid, and evolving; their usage is paradoxically prevalent and elusive" and "you are a fagget." I also was surprised and pleased to find that I was not the only one using the page as a source for emoji.
The Moderator responded as one might imagine a robot to speak, repeating over and over that he didn't understand why providing sources for the smilies on the page was so ridiculous, that Wikipedia is not meant to be used as a source but as a gateway to other sources, and that the rules of generating content supported his decision to delete all the unsourced material. "REASON DOES NOT COMPUTE, PROGRAMMED DELETION OF UN-CITED MATERIAL CONTINUES."
And the damning thing is, he was right. The argument petered out as people gave up trying to reason with the moderator. One guy copied the emoji from a cached page history and posted it as a standalone webpage, but the mod wouldn't allow it as a source either. I tried using the webpage as my new emoji reference book, but it didn't have the same feel of the Wikipedia original. I hated that it just sat there untouched, not how the Wikipedia page had been, growing and evolving daily with everyone's input. Wikipedia in general and that moderator specifically let me down that day.
Second problem with Wikipedia to follow.
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