Wikipedia

[jamonwindeyer]

What is ALRC? Do you mean AGLC (Australian Guide to Legal Citation)?

I was operating under that assumption

[MAGGOT]

Like what Brenden is saying, it's not good for academic purposes but I mean stalking an actor's filmography and the plot of the movie/show is pretty trustworthy 

[turinturambar]

I’d have to agree with this that it is  unacceptable academically. However, as OP mentioned there are citations that can be found at the bottom with some great sources. The information on Wikipedia must have come from some of these sources and I find it’s a great way to find reputable information from external websites.

There's no guarantee that the information on Wikipedia has come from one of the sources listed.  But this isn't limited to Wikipedia.  It's a common complaint about mainstream articles about scientific research, that they make claims which aren't in the original research.  And in academic papers I've seen "X says Y [3]", and read the original paper to find that they didn't really say that, or that there were important uncertainties that were stripped out.  There have even been papers cited that never existed (for example here - and no, I haven't checked any of the sources on that - though the author claims he has...)

I'm not so sure how much traceability and truth are linked anyway.  A claim can be traced through three layers of links and still be wrong (or at least misguided).  Another claim might be given with no supporting links but still be true.  Ultimately, if people are trying to fool us one of the things they rely on is that most people won't critically examine any of the supporting links, let alone look for refutations of the claim.  But I think I walked out of Wikipedia's territory there...

So basically, I think I'm with OP - Wikipedia is not the source of all truth, but it's a reasonable starting point with mostly decent accuracy.  In everyday life, I would usually take things from it at face value without checking them unless they seem suspicious.

It can be a time-sink, too.  For history, it's way too easy to start with an article on a specific incident, then follow the links out to the entire war, the social context, how it affected the next fifty years, etc...