You ask this question as if it is an unanswerable challenge. Nupedia [nupedia.com] has a comprehensive system of peer review. We have review boards made up of people with PhDs in their fields. We also have an "open review" step where anyone may post their comments. Even after an article is published, it's always open to revision. Spot an error? Fix it and send in a diff! The maintainers (the editors) of that section will review it and make the fix.
Asking who is going to pay these editors and quality controllers is like asking who is going to pay the maintainers of free software. If GNU/Linux and all the free BSD variants didn't exist, you'd be justified in your skepticism.
But we already know this will work.
What about wikipedia [wikipedia.com]? Well, here you have to judge for yourself. The review process is open and eternally ongoing. Being less rigorous, the quality of the final product is lower than Nupedia. But if you look through it, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how good it really is.
Nupedia has rigorous peer review! (Score:5)
Asking who is going to pay these editors and quality controllers is like asking who is going to pay the maintainers of free software. If GNU/Linux and all the free BSD variants didn't exist, you'd be justified in your skepticism.
But we already know this will work.
What about wikipedia [wikipedia.com]? Well, here you have to judge for yourself. The review process is open and eternally ongoing. Being less rigorous, the quality of the final product is lower than Nupedia. But if you look through it, you'll be pleasantly surprised at how good it really is.