I think wikipedia is just a vanity press gone bad; as in bad junk and lies.
"John, put my neat stuff on wikipedia and I will put your stuff on wikipedia."
"Okay Jack!"
If you see it on wikipedia you better get 4 or 5 sources first.
The www has not improved for facts; it has become 10 times harder to find facts in the past 10 years.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with the foundation of your argument:
1. How do you know
anything is a fact, unless you verify it with multiple sources?
2. If you are doing solid, fact-based research, you had better have a minimum of 3 independent sources for each of those facts. If you are smart, and really care about the quality and integrity of your research, you'll have more than 3 sources. You won't need to cite them all in whatever medium in which you report, but
you better have read them and verified them.
3. In spite of the term "fact-finding," there really isn't any such thing as "finding a fact." They aren't strewn about haphazardly, just waiting to be discovered.
What we are really doing when we do research is
verifying information, and once verified, we call it a fact.
A fact that cannot be verified isn't a fact. It isn't necessarily untrue, though, either. It may be information that needs more work done with it, or it may be info that has been disproven. But each of us needs to be responsible for what we know.
Facts can change, depending on the amount of information available at a given time, and the amount of research done using that information. It was once "a fact" that the world was flat, and had an edge off which one could sail. It stopped being a fact once the first person had circumnavigated the globe. Science uses facts, but good science never believes all facts are written in stone, unchangeable. New information tomorrow could alter something that's considered a known fact today.
This is why skepticism is important. It keeps you from making assumptions, and insists that you be sure you know what you're talking about. It requires you to ask questions of what you think you know.
It requires you to be willing to change your mind, should the available evidence warrant it.
Finally, it is no harder today to find factual information on the Internet than it has ever been to find it in a physical library.
You still have to know how and where to look. The burden is not, and has never been, on the Internet to be factual. It is, and always has been, on you to verify, verify, verify.
