[witrak]

> [...] for most topics I think many would rather see no article than a crap one.

I'm sure that many people would support just the opposite. And in the case of Wikipedia, it is even more probable: the first person who finds the weak points in an article can (and often does) add comments (or - nowadays - opinions on the discussion page), which usually instigate discussion and corrections.

Of course, in the case of scientific articles, the practices are different, and your statement holds. However, IMO Wikipedia only struggles to get as close as possible to the role of a real encyclopedia, and definitely isn't (and won't be) Asimov's Encyclopedia Galactica.