The Wiki has its uses, but let no one forget one thing : on Wikipedia, there is no such thing as the Truth - only the Consensus.
Therefor, if the Wiki High Command agrees within itself that the Earth is flat, then that's how Wikipedia will document the Earth.
Scientific truths are not deciding points on Wikipedia - which is quite understandable since the zealots going through articles and deleting them left and right have absolutely zero grasp of science.
They do, however, consider that anything THEY don't know is not worthy of being quoted.
Funny that, I always though an Encyclopedia was supposed to encompass ALL knowledge.
Thank goodness we do have REAL encyclopedias - like Universalis.

It's all very dramatic when the inq goes drama queen over their personal little vendetta between them and wikipedia, but seriously, almost ANYTHING is covered on wikipedia, so to paint a picture where only a few things are is a bit over the top, right now at least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama_queen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Now
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendetta

Deleting things because people think it is uniportant is dictatorship of the masses against the minoreties.
And everybody is some kind of minorety, so everybody will get opressed at some point in time.
How can ever possibly decide what is important or not? It's about knowledge every bit counts.
Chaos and free groth is the thing that made Wikipedia big, now denying this will ultimatly result in it's death. 

The world is full of people like this. Take for example the Register of Copyright of the US, Marybeth Peters, who admitted she was a:

'…self-proclaimed “Luddite,” who confessed she doesn’t even have a computer at home. “In hindsight, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”'

The person responsible for administering Copyright law in the US doesn’t own a computer.

Everyone thinks they're a celebrity these days. Big deal - tell him to get over it.

any sort of academic related research. but the admins are so blinking anal about anything thats somewhat obscure. really, the admins for anything contemporary generally suck.

WHY??? dumba$$es. i go to wikipedia often to find out about things I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT!!! geee, imagine that! a user uses an encyclopedia to look up information about something he is ignorant of. i never would have thought that's what encyclopedias are for... seriously though, why would they do that? why does something have to be "notable" for it to be mentioned on wiki? just because some douchebag "admin" doesn't think s/he's heard of it before, doesn't mean it shouldn't be mentioned. i'm not saying wiki should be like myspace, but if some basic description is in order of something not well known, then go for it! don't delete it, ya jacka$$es.

It would be interesting to set up an endowment for Wikipedia whose payments would be wilthheld until the community processes that govern the site are overhauled. You could call it the "Questionably Notable Subject Support Fund."

That would eliminate at least one of objections to including lots of articles on niche subjects. Ironically, those are the subjects that are most in need of documentation.

"people who read web comics should not send any cash to Wikipedia"

I think most of them don't even have a job.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/16
... but it sure is funny