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False Fact On Wikipedia Proves Itself
An anonymous reader writes "Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. What resulted from this edit points up a big problem for our information society (in German; Google translation). The German and international press picked up the wrong name from Wikipedia — including well-known newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news such as spiegel.de, Bild, heute.de, TAZ, or Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the meantime, the change on Wikipedia was reverted, with a request for proof of the name. The proof was quickly found. On spiegel.de an article cites Mr. von und zu Guttenberg using his 'full name'; however, while the quote might have been real, the full name seems to have been looked up on Wikipedia while the false edit was in place. So the circle was closed: Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia."
I'm glad I'm not the only one who notices this stuff. Not that it will do any good. These kinds of "authoritative citations" are no better to me than what I used to hear "in the old days" - that is, "I heard it on TV so it must be true!"
Sounds more like a failure of investigative journalism, not Wikipedia.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" Franklin
The story isn't that Wikipedia isn't a source for research (as opposed to a starting point). The story is that supposedly reputable news organisations don't get this - that they blindly copy factoids from Wikipedia without checking them. And not just one or two, not just some, but pretty much ALL the major players (on the German market).
Of course, the fact that this involves Wikipedia really is not all that important indeed; it could just as well have been about some other site, or a rumour started elsewhere instead of on the Internet. But given the importance of the press for a democratic society, it's worrying that so little care is exercised there and that journalistic integrity, for the most part, has become a fig leaf to cover up the fact that it's all just about one thing anymore: making money.
Here we go again.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Like all encyclopediae, it cannot be taken as a primary source of information. Der Spiegel is not a scholarly journal, either. It also cannot be taken as a primary source of information.
Bottom line: If you want to do real research, you need to go to primary sources. Calling something from Der Spiegel an authoritative citation is like calling something from The National Enquirer or Vogue an authoritative citation. Maybe the problem is that the Wikipedia editors think Der Spiegel is an authoritative source.
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Here we go again.
You mean with all the wikipedia apologists?
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Like all encyclopediae, it cannot be taken as a primary source of information.
OK then, what do you suggest? Oh, that's right...
you need to go to primary sources.
You mean like the actual fucking person the article is about? Oh wait, Wikipedia doesn't consider the actual fucking person to be a "primary source"!
And therein lies Wikipedia's problem.
Obviously we are referring to the loose kind of journalism one would find in Der Spiegel. The point that the GP was getting at, that you so flippantly deride, is that too many "researchers" these days are willing to use the first three results from a Google search as the sum total of their research into a topic. While Der Spiegel may be a reputable news outlet, one cannot generally take its articles as primary sources, and certainly not for the purposes of engaging in encyclopedic grade research.
I feel that Wikipedia needs to put in place policies that start selecting out those contributors who are unable to either engage in this level of research and those who are unable to produce encyclopedia grade writing. Many of the Wikipedia articles are, while informative and good as an introduction into a topic, very superficial and poorly written. Unsophisticated use of language is not a problem per se, however it can lead to ambiguity. The ability of a writer to consistently ensure that there is no other way their text could be interpreted is the difference between a mediocre researcher and a true scholar.
Oh, and for the record, an interview with direct quotes in a newspaper is *not* a primary source unless the newspaper states that the printed interview is the unabridged transcript of the interview. That is almost never the case. Newspapers almost always edit their interviews for brevity, language style and sometimes even content policy.
So your self-righteous indignation at his teaching standards are misplaced. It's not that he's unfair or too strict, its just that kids these days have become so spoiled by the easy access to lots of junk information that they have lost all understanding of what real research is.
I hate printers.
Consider the exploits available if simply being John Doe made you an authoritative source on the "John Doe" article. You could delete anything negative in the article and back it up with "That didn't happen, and I should know." You can claim whatever false credentials you want, and cite yourself as asserting the claim.
Treating the subject as an authoritative source on themselves may seem intuitively obvious at first glance, but it can lead to a lot of problems.
I don't want to read an article about what John Doe claims about himself (because most of it is probably boring, and some of it is probably distorted), I want an article about what reasonably reliable third parties report about him.
If you want a well-researched and well-written encyclopedia, go buy the Encyclopedia Britannica.
If you want an encyclopedia that offers a good overview of a mind-bogglingly huge range of topics, visit Wikipedia.
Both of these things have their place. Stop trying to turn one into the other.
The terrible thing about this situation is NOT that the degrading print media and others took their information from Wikipedia which would expose their lack of journalistic precision.
What NO SINGLE FUCKING ONE has mentioned so far is that this guy has just been appointed minister of economic affairs in my country AND NO ONE KNOWS WHO HE IS for fuck sake. They all got his name(s) wrong because this guy hasn't achieved anything yet. They looked him up on Wikipedia because our awful government has just appointed a nameless aristocrat to the most important position in the state during times of an economic crisis.
That, my friends, I find far more disturbing than a few journalists looking up an unimportant guy with way too many names on Wikipedia.