Is Wiki a good source of communication?

Whenever someone is googling a topic for their essay/papers, you will usually find a Wikipedia site listed somewhere on the first page. This is because people turn to Wiki as the first source of information for a general background on their topic, well at least I do at times.

I feel that Wiki is a good source of communication, and at certain times reliable. However, this highly depends on the information that you are searching for. I feel that it’s a good general source of information where a person can read about and determine by themselves whether or not it is reliable, since random people can edit the information. This really tests out a person’s skills/ability to extract information. Also it causes them to do more research, which hopefully educates them more =) Even professors and teachers tell students to start their research through google and Wikipedia for general information and then use links to find more accurate information!