Bill Harvey: Astral Weeks

Van Morrison was born in a gym and yet Jim Morrison was born in a van.

This clearly fallacious fact was always rolled out during the early years of Wikipedia as evidence of what an unreliable source such a crowd generated encyclopaedia was. Indeed, I remember balking at papers submitted for publication with references listed as web links to Wikipedia pages. However, that was some time ago and I think it is high time that cynics take another look at this resource.

There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, even after a cursory scan through when you next get the chance, you will see that entries are themselves referenced, usually with accurate citations, and are highlighted where further verification or detail is recommended. This is possible because of the multi-review structure that is in place for every entry and something that adds more tiers of input than many a refereed journal I can think of.