Wikipedia's errors are a good thing

Middlebury college's history department has forbidden students from citing Wikipedia in papers or exams because Wikipedia has errors. This is a mistake.

Colleges should encourage students to use Wikipedia in part because the online encyclopedia has errors. When students graduate they will often have to get information from sources that are not 100% accurate. Professors should give students practice at getting information from imperfect sources. Students learn more from using Wikipedia than they would from using some alternate-reality error-free version of the encyclopedia.

Also, banning Wikipedia because of its errors sends the erroneous signal to students that other sources can be completely trusted.