I am never quite sure what to make of Wikipedia.

Really interesting, tpq62! Wikipedia has always been there and I never really thought about it-- I've always just used it. Clips like this remind me that maybe I should start thinking about things that are readily available to me and everybody else.

I've found it very useful for things I don't know, and lousy for what I do know (sometimes, depending on the last burst of editing). If it is really important, I trawl through the discussion and history pages to try and get a sense of whether lonely crackpots have been overactive on the topic.

I wonder if there is an article assessing the merits of wikipedia in wikipedia, and if there is could we trust it?

Here is one article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_Wikipedia

you get what you pay for.