I love Wikipedia!
BUT - it's important to realize its limitations. It's a great source for shallow information needs (meaning you just need a quick answer, nothing in-depth), and it's second to none when it comes to pop culture. If you need accuracy, though, you should never trust a single source, no matter how authoritative it may (or may not) be.
More on the topic of Wikipedia's reliability: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_of_Wikipedia
I added a bit of information to the article on Lethbridge, my home town. Within two days, my change had been deleted (for being unreferenced), then added back in with better phrasing and a source for the information. Actually, it turned into a good example of the positive side of this type of group editing - after three edits by three different people, the end product was better than my first attempt. I'll admit that it doesn't always work that well, especially when people deliberately add misleading or offensive statements, but generally the wikipedia community catches that sort of thing quickly.
I think grammar and spelling errors are caught pretty quickly, as I didn't see very many; I didn't notice any factual errors, but I think there are many articles that would benefit from having more information. The most common problems I saw (and these were usually noted by Wikipedia) were things like articles needing better references, or being too short.
This was my first time editing Wikipedia (although my husband is an avid editor) and I'd say that overall it was a good experience - probably not something I'm going to commit a lot of time to, but worth trying.
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