I was in library school around this time (a couple years later, actually), and I remember that Wikipedia was a hot topic: can it be trusted, and why is the answer "no"?
Bucking that trend somewhat, I was in the cautiously optimistic camp. By that time it was already more useful to me than the Encyclopedia Britannica, and getting better all the time. The trajectory was clear.
It seems like, of all the exciting things from the early web, Wikipedia has been one of the only things that actually panned out the way it was intended. It didn't get commercialized, but it didn't go broke either. It didn't become a cesspool, or try to consume all of my attention. It just does the thing it's supposed to do. If there was a fire on the internet, and I could only save one website, it would be you Wikipedia.
Bucking that trend somewhat, I was in the cautiously optimistic camp. By that time it was already more useful to me than the Encyclopedia Britannica, and getting better all the time. The trajectory was clear.
It seems like, of all the exciting things from the early web, Wikipedia has been one of the only things that actually panned out the way it was intended. It didn't get commercialized, but it didn't go broke either. It didn't become a cesspool, or try to consume all of my attention. It just does the thing it's supposed to do. If there was a fire on the internet, and I could only save one website, it would be you Wikipedia.