system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Why is Wikipedia so bad to use as a source but a random website isn't

There is nobody restricting who can have a web page, why is a random website's word any more valid than the person who edited a Wikipedia article. You would think that because wiki has more web traffic that mistakes are more likely to be corrected.

Edit: This is coming from a high school student's perspective. I understand why someone in University or writing a research paper would not cite it.
gpt
A "random" website is just as bad a source as Wikipedia, but for different reasons.

Wikis are bad resources because, in and of themselves, they're not a source, they're a collection of sources that have been assembled by someone else. Aside from having someone else do the work for you, there's nothing to say that the person didn't just make up what's written there. Encyclopedias (printed ones) are just as bad as primary resources, for the same reasons.

Citations from Wiki articles can be good sources, however (but not always). This is because the source itself is likely written, posted, and hosted by an organization that peer reviews or is an expert in said topic. Experts write articles, which get published and reviewed by other experts -- making them legitimate sources for info. These are not the same as "random" websites.

TLDR: Wikis are collections of sources, not primary sources. Primary sources are peer reviewed and published as such.