I've used Wikipedia quite a bit to look up info, in fact I find it very useful to find out when other European countries have national holidays which lead to newspapers not being published, so I can sort out our publication patterns in the serials module. I've never edited it though, or looked at the information behind the actual articles, so this will be a voyage of discovery.
I looked up Cockermouth, the town where I grew up and had a look at the discussion about it: people had complained that the original article was written like a tourist brochure, trying to sell the town and various factual inaccuracies were pointed out.
There was also a warning that part of the page may be slanted towards recent events:
i.e. last year's flooding. It does read more like a news report than an encyclopedia article
I guess the idea is if everyone can edit it a mostly accurate consensus is likely to be achieved as the people who bother to edit things are more likely to be knowledgeable pedants than ignorant ne'er do wells.
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