Such problems have been widely discussed, e.g. by Tammy Andrew in Wikipedia's Credibility; and even the Wikipedia founders are searching for solutions (see for example, Online Encyclopedia Improvements).
Wikipedia is the mother of all wiki-based websites, and now is one of the most visited website across the globe. It was initially created based on an apparently impossible idea that ‘all people have knowledge to share’, and ‘unlimited editors and writers can make a comprehensive resource’. Practically, this idea was success and the company was able to control the flow of contents to keep the encyclopedia clean.
Current Weakness of Wikipedia
Contrary to the initial success, Wikipedia is facing serious difficulties at this stage (needing a new creative strategy). Preliminarily, only few professional writers and editors were involved; and this guaranteed a reliable online resource. However, with the strategy of having a complete online resource, more subjects and people are now involved. Almost every visitor wishes to contribute or edit the content to fit his/her beliefs. Theoretically, super editors are responsible to keep the content clean of personal views; but the subjects are far beyond the knowledge of a limited group of trusted editors.
On the other hand, possible abuses forced the company to create a shield against unjustified contents and links. Nevertheless, there is no solid peer-review process for the whole system; and as a result it strongly depends on personal issues (for example, the most revised page of Wikipedia is Groege W. Bush; definitely it is not due to the addition of novel materials by experts, but personal views based on political issues). Depending on the random considerations by the editor and writers, a justified content may be ignored or an unjustified content may be considered (the examples of the latter case are abundant).
The international fame of Wikipedia has made an apparent reliability for this online encyclopedia, and many students use its contents as the references of their academic projects. Definitely, this does not mean that Wikipedia is not reliable, but it is not suitable for academic references, which are usually peer-reviewed articles. The problem is that the students compare the content of Wikipedia with a well-established encyclopedia like Britannica.
A reason making the problems associated with the Wikipedia credit is that no one is responsible for the written content. In various articles, Google’s Knol has been introduced as a potential alternative to Wikipedia. Similarly, there are several major websites for publishing web-based articles with authorship. The tendency of both readers and writers to such creditable contents will gradually reduce the popularity of Wikipedia.
Different flags on most of pages make the feeling that the visitors are visiting an under construction website. For most of end-users, it does not make sense to witness the progress of Wikipedia content. They search across the internet to find solid references, and finding an incomplete version of a Wikipedia article is frustrating.
Possible Modifications
Although Wikipedia is a dynamic websites and the contents are updated regularly, it still needs to follow some classical strategies for encyclopedias. For instance, the significant of all contents should be compared, and considered as a part of the whole collection.
Although the main strategy of Wikipedia is to gain the knowledge of all people, it cannot be applied to all visitors. It is needed to define a solid process to grant the writing permission to qualified writers (e.g. a basic review of knowledge and writing skills).
As an online encyclopedia, Wikipedia needs to divide the list of references and further readings (external links) to provide a comprehensive list of solid references (published materials, not online contents) and relevant contents on the internet.
A group of few writers and editors should be responsible for an article. This should be disclosed on the article for mutual credits of both the article and contributors.
The accessibility for mature and premature articles should be distinguished. This should be treated as the difference of ‘popular stories’ and ‘new stories’ in a social bookmarking site.
