Wikipedia is useful to academics. PhD students seem to love it, particularly on home exams. Wiki stuff is quite easy to spot, tho, as it is quite difficult to paraphrase passages that have been paraphrased and re-paraphrased. On a lighter note, The Waterboys's main man Mike Scott tried to correct his own wiki profile. Ah, read more about it here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2007/mar/23/popandrock2

Jens