Order of Hermes
I decided to look up the Schism War on Wikipedia , i found this.
What does it all mean? 
This is one of the lingering legacies of the time when ArM was owned by White Wolf. They incorperated the Order of Hermes as one of the traditions in the Mage: The Ascension rpg.
None of it means a thing to ArM players. Just pretend you never saw it or rewrite the article to draw a distinction between the Mage Order of Hermes and the ArM Order of Hermes and provide information on the ArM version.
While my knowledge of Mage: The Ascension is a bit limited, I don't think even half of the information there is actually Mage canon. Looks more like an individual saga write-up.
If you tap on the word Ars Magica you get a better representation of what we are familiar with.
WoD crap. 8)
This I guess is an illustration of the major problem with Wikipedia - anyone can write or alter an article for it, and there is no peer review, so there is no way that anything can be considered to be absolutely reliable "fact." Yet my students insist on using it in their essays... 
While I completely agree with you Niall, I heard on NPR that they did a random fact check on Wikipedia comparing it various encyclopedias. If I recall, Wiki's errors were not statistically significantly. Furthermore, Wiki was prone to being more current and up to date than other sources.
Still as a source of information it remains on the encyclopedia level at best and should likely not be used as a quoted source for anyone above high school.
It wasn't NPR, it was Nature. They compared Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica. The Britannica folks weren't pleased.
When I'm not obsessing about Ars, I'm a new junkie. My bad. 
What is this NPR you speak of? 
National Public Radio.
I am a huge radio person listening to at least 4 hours a day? Probably more. In particular I listen to Public Radio. In addition to developing it's own material, most Public Radio Stations draw from a variety of groups that produce broadcast programing. National Public Radio and Public Radio International are the two largest. These two groups develop most of the programing that is broadcast by public radio stations.
Morning Edition, Fresh Aire, All Things Considered, and Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me are probably my primary sources of news and information. I rarely watch TV news and I find Newspapers unsatisifying. I think Radio not only provides access to current events but it allows a more nuanced exploration of stories than TV or the Newspaper can afford to provide. These various shows cover both popular entertainment as well as in depth stories. Together they are responsible for the segue, "I heard it on NPR" a popular way for NPR listeners to explain why they know a nuanced fact.
NPR allows for a stream of audio programs, so one can listen to the numerous stories that exist. Depending on where you live, you may simply be able to flip on the radio and listen to programing. Typically I listen through the net as I can listen to programing being broadcast both locally or from other parts of the world. I live near Chicago and think Chicago Public Radio is fantastic.
For what it's worth, I think the daily headlines are great sources of material for roleplaying. I think if people spend to much time thinking about princesses, monsters, and the nature of myth, they can end up with very... 'plain' stories. My material is riddled with croynism, corruption, lineage struggles, disputes over resources and weird locations. All of this I typically draw from world news and chicago politics.
Hope this helps,
Those two are my primary sources (in addition to the Minneapolis paper). NPR is sort of like the BBC in that it presents material a little different than other news organizations in that its primary purpose is to get news to its listeners rather than to provide an audience for its comercials.
There is also a local program that brings in my state legislators, city mayors and the govener of Minnesota on a regular basis and asks them to explain themselves with some really good questions. I hope that this sort of a program is available nationwide. If you live in the states I don't think you can get a more valuable source of information than NPR. I urge you to listen to it and to support it.