Wikipedia's collective conscience

An interesting issue to be considered with "collective brain" efforts like Wikipedia is the veracity of the information.The assumption that errors and lies will be caught by later editors of these articles may be true. It does not account for (1) articles where the subject matter is not common knowledge, and (2) where the effort is to deliberately defame someone or something. Also, will public perception of something always override the "truth"? In that case, is it a reliable, encyclopedic source? Will it reach a steady state where it becomes a consistently reliable source of information?

In the meantime, go to Wikipedia for what I think is the best compilation of general information out there.