Wikipedia:Appeal to authority
 | This is an essay on the role of Wikipedia. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: At Wikipedia we do ad verecundiam all the time. This website is essentially a huge appeal to authority. |
Wikipedia is all about appeal to proper authority, take proper authorities out and there is no Wikipedia left. An appeal to the authority of proper experts (i.e. mainstream scientists/scholars) does not constitute a logical fallacy. Basically, it is all written in WP:RS and WP:VER: if appeal to authority would be outlawed, Wikimedia Foundation would be branded as a criminal organization.
The appeal to authority is not in itself fallacious. It would be a fallacy to quote an auto mechanic upon what is the best treatment for small cells lung cancer, but it would not be a fallacy to quote a professor of medicine upon what is the best treatment for it. Of course, it would be a fallacy to claim that the professor would be infallible.
Here we do arguments from authority big time. If we remove the appeal to authority, Wikipedia will crumble like a house of cards.
Inside Wikipedia is quite unlikely to read something like "I know it since I've done the math" or "I know it since I have performed yesterday an experiment about it". Why? Because such talk is banned.