In his criticsm of the Wikipedia Robert McHenry, former editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, says that the Encyclopedia Britannica provided a trust mechanism, but the Wikipedia does not. (He does not use that language, although that is what he implies.)
Essentially, McHenry pointed out that comfortable use of the Wikipedia depends on your trusting the quality of its articles. Comfortable use of the Encyclopedia Britannica also depends on trust.
Banks and insurance companies are well known as organizations that depend on trust. That is because they offer promises of future delivery, not anything that can be checked in the here and now.
Encyclopedias are also based on trust, but that is not be so apparent. Encyclopedias offer articles that can be checked in the here and now. However, as a practical matter, no one is able to check them all. You can only check a few. To be useful, you need to trust that the unchecked articles are good enough.
This means that you must have some way of learning the reputations of the people who create the encyclopedia. Knowing this, you can expect that the quality that applies to articles you checked applies to all of them. Secondly, you must be sure that you get what you intend.
In the old days, the trust conveying people in the Encyclopedia Britannica organization published a set of books. You depended on the reputation of the company.
If an article was within the set, and you believed that the books came from the right people, then you trusted what was printed.
In order to make sure that someone did not pretend to be other than who they were, countries developed laws of fraud and trade mark and the means of policing those laws.
Otherwise, to ensure they got a trustworthy copy or promise, people had to depend on family, friends, clan, crooks, or bribed officials. Only the rich could afford such actions; and the rich did not make up much of a market.
A trust-based organization needs to provide two features: an operation that users believe; and, a way to ensure users that what they receive what is offered.
In modern times, as in the old days, trust conveying people establish organizations with defined mechanisms for adding new people. This way, organizations can develop a reputation for trustworthiness. In addition, modern information-providing organizations publish `md5 sums' or their equivalents to ensure that what they offer is what you get.
McHenry said that the method used by the people running the Wikipedia organization to ensure quality is intrinsically faulty. He quotes the Wikipedia FAQ as saying,
McHenry then said,
McHenry's point is that many eyes and access provide an opportunity to find and correct errors. (Doubtless, this is true.) However, he went on to point out that this opportunity does not necessarily mean that errors will be corrected.
Indeed, we should expect some mistakes, accidental or intentional. Hence, the importance of an organization dedicated, among other actions, to preventing mistakes.
In particular it is worth remembering that some people will benefit politically or economically from intentional changes that either mislead readers or destroy their trust. This is particularly true of encyclopedias. If not now, then in the future, some outsiders will try to damage the entity.
There is no way to determine the members of the group that checks the quality of the Wikipedia. Neither you nor a member of your family nor a friend is likely to know the other people reading the articles who can modify it. Perhaps they are ignorant. Perhaps they are -- or will be -- malicious. Consequently, you can only judge the Wikipedia's past, not its future.
In practice, you can run a trust-based organization either with paid employees or with volunteers. The Debian GNU/Linux organization shows how to work with volunteers. (The Debian GNU/Linux organization provides an operating system and related applications.)
According to McHenry at the time he wrote, November 2004, even though it could be done by volunteers, the Wikipedia organization not only failed to provide an operational method that is robust against ignorance or malice, it failed to ensure that you are not suckered.
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