[Spooky23]

Judges would consult encyclopedias and similar resources 40 years ago.

The difference is that a crowdsourced resource like Wikipedia is easier to manipulate by people who understand the system. There are plenty of PR specialists who get client articles pushed into Wikipedia or updated to their liking.

Wikipedia is a treasure, but it’s also vulnerable to a bunch of different attacks.

[the_af]

Agreed. But that's not about the quality of the articles themselves, and certainly not about their references!