Do I downrate Wikipedia answers? Sometimes. It really depends on the subject, and what the answer is.

If you're asking what the current population of China is, certainly a simple copy/paste from Wiki is okay. There's no opinion involved, and nothing that anyone save the world's biggest prude would be offended with. What are you expecting the person to do? Go to China and count each person individually? Be realistic. Some things are perfectly fine with the standard answer from Wikipedia.

However, there are exceptions. If the question involves say, what are the pros and cons of the latest operating system, then I still think it's okay to have part of your answer come from Wikipedia. The facts, i.e. what the speed is, operating requirements, known issues, upgrades from the last OS, all of that is perfectly fine to take from Wiki. But I also think you should add in a little of a personal touch, like what your own experiences have been.

There's also a third group to take into consideration. If the question asks something completely opinionated, like what your favorite whatever is, I highly doubt Wikipedia will have the answer for you.

Wikipedia is about facts, not opinions, so there's nothing wrong with copying anything from there to answer a question about facts. You should still re-write it in your own words, but there's nothing wrong with going there for the information. When you stop and think about it, whoever the author of the article is on Wiki, they had to get their facts from some place else, be it a book, a magazine, a periodical, or actual ground work. Either way, everything is taken from somewhere else, re-worded, and published as your own. Except for your opinions, in which case, I wholeheartedly disapprove copying and pasting from Wikipedia.

Learn more about this author, Catrina Hamilton.
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