For sure Wikipedia is far from perfect, it could not be used for an academic or industrial reference, sorry if you found any of it misleading. I once tried to use a wiring diagram from it to wire a data cable plug, which was supposed to be to a particular standard, the cable did not work, because the diagram on the day that I downloaded it was wrong, but the next day it had been corrected by someone else who had spotted the error. Lesson learned. Anyone can potentially make misleading changes to Wikipedia, but the point is that the majority will correct it in the end. Any time it isn’t correct, it most likely will be pretty soon. Where we need to be careful I guess is where the subject is, or becomes particularly political, then it can become the target of larger parties consistently altering it with misleading information.

The way I see it, if it is correct at the time we supply the link, confirming information we know to be true from other sources, then it is convenient to use in essays like we do in Medium. Maybe we should provide a caveat in essay footnotes, outlining the limitations, but I hope (and trust) these things will become general knowledge eventually.