Slashdot Mirror
Prosecutor Loses Case For Citing Wikipedia
Hugh Pickens writes "The Philippine Daily Inquirer reports on a recent case where the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) lost an appeal after seeking to impeach the testimony of a defendant's expert witness by citing an article from Wikipedia. In her brief, the defendant said 'the authority, alluded to by oppositor-appellant, the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders DSM-IV-TR," was taken from an Internet website commonly known as Wikipedia,' and argued that Wikipedia itself contains a disclaimer saying it 'makes no guarantee of validity.' The court in finding for the defendant said in its decision that it found 'incredible ... if not a haphazard attempt, on the part of the (OSG) to impeach an expert witness, with, as pointed out by (the defendant) unreliable information. This is certainly unacceptable evidence, nothing short of a mere allegation totally unsupported by authority.'"
... firm and I've seen this done, uncontested
I'm not sure what's sadder, that someone I work with has done this, or that the other side doesn't even understand how bad it is...
Yeah, the wording is confusing.
"In her brief, the ex-wife said “the authority, alluded to by oppositor-appellant, the ‘Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders DSM-IV-TR,’ was taken from an Internet website commonly known as Wikipedia.”"
It makes it sound as though the DSM only exists in the fairytale land of Wikipedia. Unless he SAID "from this article about the DSM on wikipedia", in which case he's just a dumbass
Because nobody cares about the path to the answer, it's not important. Nobody cares that you started with Wikipedia to get the real reference to a reliable source. You cite the original source of a fact.
Exactly. It is also important to actually read the original source for yourself. It's been known to happen that some Wikipedia editor cites a source and then completely makes up what it says. It can take a long time for someone to notice this, if ever.
In this example someone eventually did notice, after several years of tendencious unsupportable "facts" being "backed up by citations" in the article.