[xdennis]

I wouldn't say it's garbage, just that the quality varies a lot. Uncontroversial stuff is quite accurate.

A simple metric I use is: how long the talk page is. If a talk page has 15 archives then the article page is probably politically biased hot trash.

[sedev]

Unfortunately this heuristic, while often good, can sometimes lead you wildly astray — for examples see the article on Beyoncé and the article about the plant _Zea mays._ Good articles, but you want a hazmat suit for the talk pages.