When I've checked Wikipedia citations I've found so much brazen deception - citations that obviously don't support the claim - that I don't have confidence in Wikipedia.
> Applying correct citations is actually really hard work, even when you know the material thoroughly.
Why do you find it hard? Scholarly references can be sources for fundamental claims, review articles are a big help too.
Also, I tend to add things to Wikipedia or other wikis when I come across something valuable rather than writing something and then trying to find a source (which also is problematic for other reasons). A good thing about crowd-sourcing is that you don't have to write the article all yourself or all at once; it can be very iterative and therefore efficient.
It's more like, a lot of stuff in Wikipedia articles is somewhat "general" knowledge in a given field, where it's not always exactly obvious how to cite it, because it's not something any specific person gets credit for "inventing". Like, if there's a particular theorem then sure you cite who came up with it, or the main graduate-level textbook it's taught in. But often it's just a particular technique or fact that just kind of "exists" in tons of places but there's no obvious single place to cite it from.
So it actually takes some work to find a good reference. Like you say, review articles can be a good source, survey articles or books. But it can take a surprising amount of effort to track down a place that actually says the exact thing. I literally just last week was helping a professor (leader in their field!) try to find a citation during peer review for their paper for an "obvious fact" in the field, that was in their introduction section. It was actually really challenging, like trying to produce a citation for "the sky is blue".
I remember, years ago, creating a Wikipedia article for a particular type of food in a particular country. You can buy it at literally every supermarket there. How the heck do you cite the food and facts about it? It just... is. Like... websites for manufacturers of the food aren't really citations. But nobody's describing the food in academic survey articles either. You're not going to link to Allrecipes. What do you do? It's not always obvious.
If you can buy the food at a supermarket, can't you cite a product page? Presumably that would include a description of the product. Or is that not good enough of a citation?
Retail product listing URLs change constantly. They're not great.
And then you usually want to describe how the food is used. E.g. suppose it's a dessert that's mainly popular at children's birthday parties. Everybody in the country knows that. But where are you going to find something written that says that? Something that's not just a random personal blog, but an actual published valid source?
Ideally you can find some kind of travel guide or book for expats or something with a food section that happens to list it, but if it's not a "top" food highly visible to tourists, then good luck.
I found several that were contradicting the claim they were supposed to support (in popular articles). I will never regain faith in wikipedia. Being an editor or just verifying information from wikipedia makes you hate it
> Applying correct citations is actually really hard work, even when you know the material thoroughly.
Why do you find it hard? Scholarly references can be sources for fundamental claims, review articles are a big help too.
Also, I tend to add things to Wikipedia or other wikis when I come across something valuable rather than writing something and then trying to find a source (which also is problematic for other reasons). A good thing about crowd-sourcing is that you don't have to write the article all yourself or all at once; it can be very iterative and therefore efficient.