That’s the headline some clever Observer sub-editor put on this morning’s column…

There are two kinds of people in the world – those who think Wikipedia is amazing, wonderful, or inspiring; and those who simply cannot understand how a reference work compiled by thousands of ‘amateurs’ (and capable of being edited by any Tom, Dick or Harry) should be taken seriously. Brisk, vigorous and enjoyable arguments rage between these two camps, and provide useful diversion on long winter evenings.

What’s more interesting is the way Wikipedia entries have risen in Google’s page-ranking system so that the results of many searches now include a Wikipedia page in the first few hits…