> In my opinion, if you used Wikipedia, you should cite it [...] It's a really huge problem that people pull ideas from Wikipedia, attribute them to something like "paper 4"..

Your solution for using unreliable Wikipedia is to cite it. My solution (and the way I was taught) is to simply _never use it_ for stuff which goes into the paper.

If I wanted to claim something ("widgets are quux"), I might certainly _start_ with Wikipedia, just to make sure that my understanding is correct and that I am not wasting my time, but if I want to use this in the paper, I will need to move to primary sources, read them and ensure that there is a good evidence that widgets are indeed quux.

So now that I spent all that time reading primary sources, I'd certainly cite them and not Wikipedia - after all, primary sources are better, and a single citation is enough. And in the case the Wikipedia author was wrong, I will avoid a mistake.

By extension, if I am citing Wikipedia, this means I have not found/read any better sources, and that just shows that I am lazy or maybe those widgets are not quux at all. Any advisor/reviewer would immediately point to this mistake - "Why are you citing Wikipedia here? Find a better source or remove the claim"

And that's how the rule is made - it's not "Don't cite Wikipedia [put ideas unattributed instead]", it is actually "Don't cite Wikipedia [find a better source and cit it instead]".

(Although I agree that some lazy people do former rather than latter)