Sacha Baron Cohen Wikipedia Entry Creates Circular References

Lantrix writes "An anonymous user added information to Wikipedia's entry on Sacha Baron Cohen three days before the now-referenced external article was written. The Independent wrote the referenced article apparently using Wikipedia as the source establishing his 'Goldman Sachs' career. Now Wikipedia uses as a references the article that came after the initial modification to Wikipedia itself."

Accountability

So a journalist used Wikipedia as a primary source, added something incorrect to an article. Now the same Wikipedia page is using that article as its primary source, which in the view of Wikipedia makes the incorrect fact true. Chaos ensues.

The weak link is the journalist -- who should have known better. And now the newspaper presumably knows all about it. So perhaps this kind of problem can be self-correcting in the long run...

Re:Accountability

I agree. This doesn't even seem to be as big a deal as the article makes it out to be.

Now wikipedia uses as its references the articles that came after the initial modification to Wikipedia itself

I found the summary particularly inflammatory for no apparent reason. I mean, wow! People sometimes misuse wikipedia! We had no idea! This isn't standard practice or any guideline set down by admins. It's one case where some anonymous editor acted foolishly.

You can take this and make a point about how lightly people these days treat information. They don't even consider verifiability and good practice like that. What you can't do is somehow take this and make it a crusade against wikipedia like the summary hints at.

Re:Accountability

Wikipedia is notoriously bad at biographical content regarding famous people, it's just the nature of the beast. The wikinazi's can plaster citation needed all over the place, but it's not going to change the spin that PR types are going to places on every bit of information they can lay their lying hands on. I'm waiting for a Wikipedia article explaining how the Chinese have rolled out modern infra-structure and established human rights in Tibet

Re:Accountability

You can take this and make a point about how lightly people these days treat information. They don't even consider verifiability and good practice like that. What you can't do is somehow take this and make it a crusade against wikipedia like the summary hints at.

This issue isn't black-and-white; the journalist is to blame, the editors are to blame, and wikipedia too is to blame.

How come the latter? Well, over the last few years the average Internet-user has had quite a few articles comparing the reliability of Wikipedia against Encylopedia Brittanica. It was always a study comparing a fixed set of articles, but this has lead to the public perception that Wikipedia is comparable to EB.

This wouldn't have been a problem, if the Wiki-cabal wasn't trying to reinforce the meme that the two are comparable. The public is increasingly relying on Wikipedia to be correct, but due to its nature you have to take each and every article with a large grain of salt. Nowhere on your average Wikipedia-page is this stated.

I'm not talking about a 'disputed' block, but a 'wikipedia-is-not-an-encyclopedia' block on each and every page. Until that time, you can't put all the blame on the (mis)users of Wikipedia.

Fact checking

And what happened to fact checking? There was a time when a small army of fact checkers would verify things like this before they were published. The Internet is a great tool but it's pulling the rug out from under the newspapers and we will all suffer from the loss of reliable, fact-checked information.

Re:Fact checking

This is the British press we're talking about. Instead of "Is it true?" the question they ask is "Will they sue?"

Re:Fact checking

we will all suffer from the loss of reliable, fact-checked information.

I don't see how that's related to newspapers.

Re:Accountability

I would think that any circular references would be self-correcting by the Wikipedia community. Therein lies the solution, and the problem; there does need to be consistent and enforcible rules that are devoid of ambiguity and self-interest, with a measured degree of accountability.

What's wrong with that?

When the whole world uses Wikipedia as the reference for a lot of things, what's wrong when Wikipedia does it? This is completely biased...

Recursion, see also: Recursion.

From TFA:
>A recent post on SlashDot quotes an IT professor saying

I hope this isnt a circular reference to THIS post.

Re:Recursion, see also: Recursion.

The whole Web 2.0 Internet is a just a mass of circular references. Be thankful that it isn't telling you the holocaust never happened, or something else obviously untrue.

Actually, it's the believable but false information that's much more insidious and dangerous.

Re:Recursion, see also: Recursion.

I wish I had mot points. Obviously untrue disinformation is not a threat, People will use information hygiene techniques(verifiaibility, checking sources, even debate). It's not so obviously untrue disinformation, which is dangerous. If you slowly, over time, change some story from the truth to something untrue. If it happens slowly enough, people will not have the reflex to check the information, and in time, it will be established as the truth.

It is not a source...

You just have to use it for what it is... It helps you start research. It is a lead generator, or an index. But if you think it actually has answers, or your research can end there, you are an idiot. But you have a lot of company.

Re:It is not a source...

I wish people would use the damn references section at the bottom of the Wiki pages.

Ronnie Hazlehurst

This has in fact happened before. When Ronnie Hazlehurst [wikipedia.org] died, multiple newspapers here in the UK mentioned that he cowrote "Reach" by S Club 7. This information came from Wikipedia (and was the result of vandalism), but once a few papers had published it, everyone did, as it was clearly backed up by many reliable sources.

The article is still being edited to include this "fact" every now and again, often referring to one of the articles which made the error.

Re:Ronnie Hazlehurst

He now receives royalties.

Not the first time

I've seen circular referencing occur many times on Wikipedia, often by complete accident. If journalists actually gave their own sources when writing articles, it would be much less of a problem. Of course they will never do that, as then it would be revealed that they themselves don't bother fact-checking at all.

Setup?

Doesn't anybody find it curious that this "anonymous" poster knew the article was coming out before it did, and that the author of the article happened to look up his subject on wikipedia just as the entry was updated? If I wanted to discredit Wikipedia, or at least cause a minor stir, I would probably construct an artificial circular-reference scenario, and this is how I would do it. In any event, the previous comments to the effect that the flaw was in the journalism are spot on.

It must be true. I read it on the Internets.

Well, if Wikipedia AND the Independent say it's true, it must be. Right?

1984

This story reminded me of 1984's Ministry of Truth, which regulary "edited" history to match the current political scene. Writing stuff in Wikipedia makes it true.

What can we learn from this?

The "easy" answer is: "Wikipedia is unreliable".

A better answer might be: "Journalists are unreliable".

I find it interesting when I hear about people complain about errors in Wikipedia, but don't put it into the same context as errors appearing everywhere else. How many people have read an article about something they had personal knowledge of written by some journalist, and found glaring errors in it? I know I have.

People need to stop trusting single sources of information blindly. All information can be wrong, even "conventional wisdom".

Cheney did it first

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Before the invasion of Iraq, the New York Times quoted a "high level" person within the administration of as saying Iraq has started up their weapons program again. Dick Cheney then quoted that article on Meet the Press I believe as proof of the Iraqi weapons program. It later surfaced that Cheney was the "high level" person within the administration who made the original quote.

Not just wikipedia

Recall that some of the Iraq WMD intelligence cited as further evidence by Bush was from the Brits. And the Brits got their info from.... the Americans.

So it just isn't Wikipedia that needs to be careful.

Nothing new to see here... move along....

It's ok

It's wikipedia, it's possible to correct this kind of thing. In fact there is no longer a reference to the article in Wikipedia.

Re:Summary

And in English?

A = anonymous Wiki node, B = Independent article.

A make a claim with B as a reference.
B makes the same claim with A as the reference.

Thus, both sources have technically substantiated their claim, despite the niggling li'l absence of "truth".