From footnote 19 of Crispin v. Christian Audigier, Inc. United States District Court, C.D. California. May 26, 2010, 717 F.Supp.2d 965:
It is unfortunate that the parties were unable to provide more authoritative evidence. One court recently noted the danger of relying on Wikipedia:
“Wikipedia.com [is] a website that allows virtually anyone to upload an article into what is essentially a free, online encyclopedia. A review of the Wikipedia website reveals a pervasive and, for our purposes, disturbing series of disclaimers, among them, that: (i) any given Wikipedia article ‘may be, at any given moment, in a bad state: for example it could be in the middle of a large edit or it could have been recently vandalized;’ (ii) Wikipedia articles are ‘also subject to remarkable oversights and omissions;’ (iii) ‘Wikipedia articles (or series of related articles) are liable to be incomplete in ways that would be less usual in a more tightly controlled reference work;’ (iv) ‘[a]nother problem with a lot of content on Wikipedia is that many contributors do not cite their sources, something that makes it hard for the reader to judge the credibility of what is written;’ and (v) ‘many articles commence their lives as partisan drafts' and may be ‘caught up in a heavily unbalanced viewpoint.’ †Campbell ex rel. Campbell v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 69 Fed.Cl. 775, 781 (2006).
See also Badasa v. Mukasey, 540 F.3d 909, 910 (8th Cir.2008) (noting that Wikipedia is not a sufficiently reliable source on which to rest judicial findings for the reasons stated in Campbell); Kole v. Astrue, No. CV 08–0411–LMB, 2010 WL 1338092, *7 n. 3 (D.Idaho Mar. 31, 2010) (“At this point, it must be noted that, in support of his brief, Respondent cites to Wikipedia. While it may support his contention of what the mathematical symbols of ‘<’ and ‘>’ refer to, Respondent is admonished from using Wikipedia as an authority in this District again. Wikipedia is not a reliable source at this level of discourse. As an attorney representing the United States, Mr. Rodriguez should know that citations to such unreliable sources only serve to undermine his reliability as counselâ€); R. Jason Richards, Courting Wikipedia, 44 TRIAL 62, 62 (2008) (“Since when did a Web site that any Internet surfer can edit become an authoritative source by which law students could write passing papers, experts could provide credible testimony, lawyers could craft legal arguments, and judges could issue precedents?â€); James Glerick, Wikipedians Leave Cyberspace, Meet in Egypt, Wall St. J., Aug. 8, 2008, at W1 (“Anyone can edit [a Wikipedia] article, anonymously, hit and run. From the very beginning that has been Wikipedia's greatest strength and its greatest weaknessâ€). Judge McDermott accepted the information, however, and the parties do not dispute it now. The court will therefore consider the evidence presented to Judge McDermott as that is the content of the record on appeal.
[Emphasis added for TLDR.]
Full Version: Judicial bashing of Wikipedia
Yet you can find just as many cases that flip the opposite way. Like this concurrence from the 9th Circuit in Gonzalez v. Arizona, --- F.3d ----, 2012 WL 1293149 at *18 (9th Cir. Apr. 17, 2012).
Or footnote 12 in the 1st Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Brown, 669 F.3d 10, 18, n.12 (1st Cir. 2012).
Or footnote 1 in the 7th Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Adams, 646 F.3d 1008, 1009, n.1 (7th Cir. 2011).
QUOTE
Chief Judge KOZINSKI, concurring:
I find this a difficult and perplexing case. The statutory language we must apply is readily susceptible to the interpretation of the majority, but also that of the dissent. For a state to “accept and use†the federal form could mean that it must employ the form as a complete registration package, to the exclusion of other materials. This would construe the phrase “accept and use†narrowly or exclusively. But if we were to give the phrase a broad or inclusive construction, states could “accept and use†the federal form while also requiring registrants to provide documentation confirming what's in the form. This wouldn't render the federal form superfluous, just as redundant braking systems on cars and secondary power supplies on computers aren't superfluous. This is known colloquially as wearing a belt and suspenders, and is widely used to safeguard against failure of critical systems (i.e., getting caught with your pants down). See Redundancy (engineering), Wikipedia, http://goo.gl/ce8il (last visited Jan. 9, 2012).
I find this a difficult and perplexing case. The statutory language we must apply is readily susceptible to the interpretation of the majority, but also that of the dissent. For a state to “accept and use†the federal form could mean that it must employ the form as a complete registration package, to the exclusion of other materials. This would construe the phrase “accept and use†narrowly or exclusively. But if we were to give the phrase a broad or inclusive construction, states could “accept and use†the federal form while also requiring registrants to provide documentation confirming what's in the form. This wouldn't render the federal form superfluous, just as redundant braking systems on cars and secondary power supplies on computers aren't superfluous. This is known colloquially as wearing a belt and suspenders, and is widely used to safeguard against failure of critical systems (i.e., getting caught with your pants down). See Redundancy (engineering), Wikipedia, http://goo.gl/ce8il (last visited Jan. 9, 2012).
Or footnote 12 in the 1st Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Brown, 669 F.3d 10, 18, n.12 (1st Cir. 2012).
QUOTE
FN12. If it could be given a label, Edward's belief system appears most akin to the so-called sovereign citizen movement whose proponents believe they are not subject to federal or state statutes or proceedings, reject most forms of taxation as illegitimate, and place special significance in commercial law. See Wikipedia, http:// en. wikipedia. org/ wiki/ Sovereign_ citizen_ movement (last visited January 13, 2012). Edward's comments reflected this philosophy. He repeatedly indicated that he did not recognize the district court or the laws it operated under. He also referred to himself and Elaine as “secured party creditors†and stated that a criminal case is really a “commercial transaction.†He referred to the court as “nothing but a commercial court†and “one of the biggest businesses in the country.â€
Or footnote 1 in the 7th Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Adams, 646 F.3d 1008, 1009, n.1 (7th Cir. 2011).
QUOTE
The events that led to the indictment against Adams kicked off in 2007 when an FBI task force agent in Florida accessed the peer-to-peer program “LimeWire†through the Internet as part of an undercover investigation into child pornography.FN1 After the agent entered various search terms associated with child pornography, he was connected to Adams' computer, from which the agent downloaded nine files containing child pornography. The presentence report (PSR) described the images as depicting:
FN1. LimeWire, according to Wikipedia, is a free-access file-sharing program that allows users to make files available to all other LimeWire users by placing them in a shared folder. Any LimeWire user may access that folder to download files, but they may not add to another user's shared folder. This appears to mean that if a file is in a LimeWire user's shared folder, then that user put it there.
FN1. LimeWire, according to Wikipedia, is a free-access file-sharing program that allows users to make files available to all other LimeWire users by placing them in a shared folder. Any LimeWire user may access that folder to download files, but they may not add to another user's shared folder. This appears to mean that if a file is in a LimeWire user's shared folder, then that user put it there.
This is one of the biggest failures of Wikipedia Review. It's been ten years and the powers that be still do not get it. Wikipedia is unreliable.
Most people seem to think that, yes anyone can edit it but still it comes out reliable.
No it does not. It is less reliable than most sources. It changes day to day. It has all sorts of factual errors and bias.
One of these days I'm going to compile a long list of errors all in one place, and document them having been there for years.
Most people seem to think that, yes anyone can edit it but still it comes out reliable.
No it does not. It is less reliable than most sources. It changes day to day. It has all sorts of factual errors and bias.
One of these days I'm going to compile a long list of errors all in one place, and document them having been there for years.
QUOTE(Shalom @ Mon 30th April 2012, 11:24pm) 
Wikipedia.com [is]...
...actually a redirect to the real address of Wikipedia, wikipedia.org. It's a noncommercial entity.
QUOTE
This is one of the biggest failures of Wikipedia Review. It's been ten years and the powers that be still do not get it. Wikipedia is unreliable.
Most people seem to think that, yes anyone can edit it but still it comes out reliable.
No it does not. It is less reliable than most sources. It changes day to day. It has all sorts of factual errors and bias.
One of these days I'm going to compile a long list of errors all in one place, and document them having been there for years.
Most people seem to think that, yes anyone can edit it but still it comes out reliable.
No it does not. It is less reliable than most sources. It changes day to day. It has all sorts of factual errors and bias.
One of these days I'm going to compile a long list of errors all in one place, and document them having been there for years.
Have any chinese users (when they're not locked out due to TOR blocking) said anything about that large reference source called Baidu Baike? How does it score, compared to the English Wikipedia?
I think that Wikiwatch was the most entertaining collection of arguments against Wikipedia and examples of ridiculousness.
To give two examples:
To give two examples:
QUOTE
In fact, according to this list, the Germans are only one massacre short of being equal to the Jews in their quantity of suffering. In fact, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustlaff, as this would then equalize the victimhood of the Germans and the Jews.
This is the big problem with purely volunteer activities. You only get people working on things they care deeply about. In this case, we've had Polish nationalist contributors wanting to show how badly their country has suffered at everybody's hands. (Not just Germans, but Lithuanians, Jews, Ukrainians and Soviets have kicked the Poles around on this list.) We've had neo-Nazi contributors trying to prove that Germany was surrounded by big bad enemies, so of course the Nazis were justified in invading them. We've had anti-American contributors wanting to show that the USA is (and always has been) worse than almost everyone else in history, even worse than the Soviets (7 massacres by Americans versus 1 by the Soviets.). Meanwhile, no one really cares what the Japanese did in Singapore, or what the Italians did in Yugoslavia. ("Whatever. It was a long time ago.")
This is the big problem with purely volunteer activities. You only get people working on things they care deeply about. In this case, we've had Polish nationalist contributors wanting to show how badly their country has suffered at everybody's hands. (Not just Germans, but Lithuanians, Jews, Ukrainians and Soviets have kicked the Poles around on this list.) We've had neo-Nazi contributors trying to prove that Germany was surrounded by big bad enemies, so of course the Nazis were justified in invading them. We've had anti-American contributors wanting to show that the USA is (and always has been) worse than almost everyone else in history, even worse than the Soviets (7 massacres by Americans versus 1 by the Soviets.). Meanwhile, no one really cares what the Japanese did in Singapore, or what the Italians did in Yugoslavia. ("Whatever. It was a long time ago.")
QUOTE
Some Wikipedia articles need to be put out of their misery - like the Pontian Greek Genocide.
For those of you unfamiliar with this event, here's a quick summary. After World War One, the winners were dismantling the Ottoman Empire along ethnic lines, but Greeks and Turks were all intermingled throughout Anatolia, so it wasn't easy to draw a clean border between them. Greece and Turkey fought a war to decide where the new border should fall, and once military events fixed the border, the two countries shoved people around to fit it. Because the Turks won the war, there were more Greeks in Turkey than Turks in Greece. Thus, the Greeks got the worst of this ethnic cleansing, and several hundred thousand of them disappeared into oblivion.
This has left a lot of bad feelings.
I have no idea what the article will look like when you see it because it's had over 50 edits in the past month and a half, and will probably have a few more by the time I finish this paragraph, but here are a few items I scrounged from the version I found:
"Turks kept busy ... exploiting the profits while terrorizing the inhabitants."
"... adopted the inhumane measure..."
"...fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people..."
"... the supposedly liberal and constitutionally oriented Young Turks..."
"These islands had been liberated from Ottoman control in 1912."
"... 4,000 years of glorious and productive history..."
"It was a state founded on crime..."
What can I say? Accuracy aside, this is totally unprofessional writing. Here's some free advice: Let the facts speak for themselves. Using too many loaded words like fanatic, terrorizing, glorious, supposedly and inhumane makes you sound crazy.
Obviously, the article will never, ever be allowed to rest in peace. Whatever you write, no matter how accurate or fluent, will be changed by the end of the week. The best solution would be to get a couple of knowledgeable historians (or at least history majors) to write it from scratch, and then lock it against further edits. Unfortunately that's what a real encyclopedia would do, and it would admit the failure of the whole Wikipedia concept.
More likely, Wikipedia will try to delete the article, as they did with the similar Hellenic Genocide article. Then they'll redirect queries to an innocuous article like Greco-Turkish Relations. The two problems with that are 1) it whitewashes a bad era of history, and 2) you're just moving the fight to another article. Banning individual users won't work because you have two whole countries full of people with strong opinions on the matter.
For those of you unfamiliar with this event, here's a quick summary. After World War One, the winners were dismantling the Ottoman Empire along ethnic lines, but Greeks and Turks were all intermingled throughout Anatolia, so it wasn't easy to draw a clean border between them. Greece and Turkey fought a war to decide where the new border should fall, and once military events fixed the border, the two countries shoved people around to fit it. Because the Turks won the war, there were more Greeks in Turkey than Turks in Greece. Thus, the Greeks got the worst of this ethnic cleansing, and several hundred thousand of them disappeared into oblivion.
This has left a lot of bad feelings.
I have no idea what the article will look like when you see it because it's had over 50 edits in the past month and a half, and will probably have a few more by the time I finish this paragraph, but here are a few items I scrounged from the version I found:
"Turks kept busy ... exploiting the profits while terrorizing the inhabitants."
"... adopted the inhumane measure..."
"...fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people..."
"... the supposedly liberal and constitutionally oriented Young Turks..."
"These islands had been liberated from Ottoman control in 1912."
"... 4,000 years of glorious and productive history..."
"It was a state founded on crime..."
What can I say? Accuracy aside, this is totally unprofessional writing. Here's some free advice: Let the facts speak for themselves. Using too many loaded words like fanatic, terrorizing, glorious, supposedly and inhumane makes you sound crazy.
Obviously, the article will never, ever be allowed to rest in peace. Whatever you write, no matter how accurate or fluent, will be changed by the end of the week. The best solution would be to get a couple of knowledgeable historians (or at least history majors) to write it from scratch, and then lock it against further edits. Unfortunately that's what a real encyclopedia would do, and it would admit the failure of the whole Wikipedia concept.
More likely, Wikipedia will try to delete the article, as they did with the similar Hellenic Genocide article. Then they'll redirect queries to an innocuous article like Greco-Turkish Relations. The two problems with that are 1) it whitewashes a bad era of history, and 2) you're just moving the fight to another article. Banning individual users won't work because you have two whole countries full of people with strong opinions on the matter.
QUOTE(Text @ Tue 1st May 2012, 11:13am)
QUOTE
This is one of the biggest failures of Wikipedia Review. It's been ten years and the powers that be still do not get it. Wikipedia is unreliable.
Most people seem to think that, yes anyone can edit it but still it comes out reliable.
No it does not. It is less reliable than most sources. It changes day to day. It has all sorts of factual errors and bias.
One of these days I'm going to compile a long list of errors all in one place, and document them having been there for years.
Most people seem to think that, yes anyone can edit it but still it comes out reliable.
No it does not. It is less reliable than most sources. It changes day to day. It has all sorts of factual errors and bias.
One of these days I'm going to compile a long list of errors all in one place, and document them having been there for years.
Have any chinese users (when they're not locked out due to TOR blocking) said anything about that large reference source called Baidu Baike? How does it score, compared to the English Wikipedia?
I love other cultures' wikis even if I have to read some in machine translation. Not accurate cultural barometers per se but still fascinating, especially politically contentious issues.
The Baidu Baike article on the "province" of Taiwan is a good read.
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