Wikipedia - Good? Bad?

This week in my reference services class, the discussion board topic is Wikipedia. Do we like it? Do we use it? Would we recommend it to patrons?

We also read this article from The New Yorker as a starting point for the discussion.

I had no idea that people felt so strongly about it one way the other, but it's turning out to be a very interesting discussion. Some people are very strongly against its use as anyone can write or modify an article making it hard to trust any information 100%, but the fact that anyone can contribute is also what makes it so vast and powerful as well.

I feel that, as with any information resource, each article should be evaluated on its own merits, and one should never use a Wikipedia article as a source for an academic paper, but it's a great starting point in research - it can give a decent overview and point someone in the direction of other, more verifiable sources. I love Wikipedia, and use it all the time.