Wikipedia is definitely a better source for esoteric scientific topics than biographies or controversial topics. Nature even published an essay saying that Wikipedia was
about as accurate as Britannica in scientific articles. I'd guess that it's because contributors to specific scientific topics generally know the topic (I'm talking about topics like
"Coeliac disease", not "biology," which more people edit). Although obviously I wouldn't use wikipedia as a primary source, but it can be helpful to get a general feel and to find important papers that are used.
Biographies of controversial figures are pathetic since they are always skewed in one direction and give undo weight to controversies; any article subject to vandalism will not be so great; but who would take the effort to vandalize
autostereogram?