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gomi

Where Wikipedia Citations Come From

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QUOTE
I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author.
SB_Johnny
Truthiness.
EricBarbour
QUOTE(gomi @ Wed 16th November 2011, 11:43am) *

QUOTE
I just read a pop-science book by a respected author. One chapter, and much of the thesis, was based around wildly inaccurate data which traced back to... Wikipedia. To encourage people to be on their toes, I'm not going to say what book or author.

Curse you sir, I was going to post that XKCD.

And now I want to know which book is mentioned. Because such information is useful to us.
Kelly Martin
This isn't new to Wikipedia; a much older example of the same phenomenon can be found starting with a well-known fellow often known as Pliny the Elder. All Wikipedia has done is speed the process up, which in some ways is a boon because it makes it more likely that we'll spot it.
EricBarbour
QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Wed 16th November 2011, 3:00pm) *
All Wikipedia has done is speed the process up, which in some ways is a boon because it makes it more likely that we'll spot it.

Provided, of course, someone cares to check references.

"Google is your friend" is a bit of dark comedy. Just remember, I did a serious test of weblink
references from 10 random articles, and found that 19% of the links were dead....
gomi
QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Wed 16th November 2011, 3:00pm) *

This isn't new to Wikipedia; a much older example of the same phenomenon can be found starting with a well-known fellow often known as Pliny the Elder.

Best. Sock Name. Evah.
the fieryangel
QUOTE(gomi @ Thu 17th November 2011, 1:29am) *

QUOTE(Kelly Martin @ Wed 16th November 2011, 3:00pm) *

This isn't new to Wikipedia; a much older example of the same phenomenon can be found starting with a well-known fellow often known as Pliny the Elder.

Best. Sock Name. Evah.


I dunno, Semifreddo was pretty good too...

(PS everybody had already seen that cartoon on FB....)
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