Like many people, I have increasingly got in the habit of using Wikipedia as my first source of online information. An incident has made me question that habit.

Recently I was treated to a delightful performance by the dengue virus. While sick and suspecting it was dengue, I checked out the Wikipedia entry for the disease, which reads, “Dengue is transmitted to humans by the Aedes aegypti (rarely Aedes albopictus) mosquito. This mosquito tends to bite just after dawn and just before sunset.” (my emphasis)

Except this is bullshit. I was bitten sometime between 12noon and 2pm. Further research reveals that the World Health Organization says the virus is borne by “day-time biting” mosquitoes — not just at dawn and dusk.

So being a good soldier I went to the Wikipedia entry and changed the entry to contain the correct information: you can, in fact, get dengue at anytime during the day. I returned the next day and it had been changed back. I changed it again, this time with an explanatory note; again, within hours, it had been changed back.

This incident made it clear to me for the first time just how much of Wikipedia is, in fact, run by doctrinal zealots with a torch to burn in their ivory tower, people less interested in the truth than in staking a claim for their egos.

Verdict: whoever is willing to fight most and spend the most time editing and re-editing Wikipedia will be the person to tell his version of the truth.

Question: does that make it a reliable source of information?