Evaluating a Website

The website I choice to evaluate was:  Wikipedia.org 

I choice to evaluate this website because in high school it was always frustrating and confusing to me as to why the librarians always said Wikipedia was not a reliable source.  Yet, we had always learned that websites with ".org" were reliable ones to use.  Why is Wikipedia the exception when it's so useful?

After reviewing, I see the potential for harm of the website.  Although information is usually accurate and useful, it can never be 100% reliable because anyone and everyone can edit, add, or change information.  For example, the article on "racism" had the following flags:  "The verifiability of all or part of this article is disputed" and "The neutrality of this article is disputed."  Thus, especially under such heated topics that people's opinions often differ, the website could be subject to bias and inaccurate information.

It was really helpful to me to be able to see the things that are necessary to look for in checking the validity such as author being identified, date of last edit to make information current, all pictures having alternative text to assist special learners, and how familiar you are with the organization that publishes this site. I think it's very useful to think critically about the websites both you use and ones the children might be using.