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."

Re:Accountability

[unlametheweak]

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.

Happened before ...

[gladiacuk]

This has happened before, with the Ronnie Hazelhurst article [wikipedia.org], as reported here [theregister.co.uk].

Cheney did it first

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Accountability

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like the reliable sources policy [wikipedia.org]?

Re:Setup?

[Anonymous Coward]

The anonymous editor didn't reference the article. What they referenced were facts that were later used in the article, presumably because the article writer got their facts from Wikipedia.

For a timeline of events:
1) Anonymous editor adds fact X to the Wikipedia entry.
2) Article gets published, making mention of fact X.
3) Wikipedia entry now adds the article as a source for fact X.

It really is just a matter of coincidence. Had the Wikipedia entry mentioned the article before it was published, then sure, start wearing a tinfoil hat. But that's not what happened here.

Re:Ronnie Hazlehurst

[ketilwaa]

{{citation needed}}

Re: Believeable but False

[TaoPhoenix]

The story of the Bush regime.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/10/0079780?pg=1 [harpers.org]

"A history of the Iraq war, told entirely in lies." (And that hasn't even been updated yet!)

While everyone basically suspected as such, the nation's highest leadership exacted retribution as if it were true, creating your mentioned dangerous cognitive dissonance.

DEFINITELY not the first time. Example from 2006:

[dpbsmith]

...although I agree that it's scary.

The first time I noticed such occurrence, it was in 2006 in connection with a claim that in the days when the Ivy League was being organized, Rutgers was invited to join, but declined. This claim was originally unreferenced, then referenced to a hard-to-verify source. The editor who inserted the claim said he had seen it in microfilm records of Rutger's student newspaper, The Targum, and mentioned a year, but never gave an exact date and page number, giving varying reasons for not so doing.

One day, there was great excitement because someone found a good, verifiable print reference in a mass-circulation newspaper. It was quickly added to the article, and many of us thought the matter was settled.

The newspaper story, of course, did not mention its source. Someone found an email address for the reporter and queried the reporter... who acknowledged that his source had been Wikipedia!

The whole story (and much more) is at A Rutgers reference from the Daily news [wikipedia.org]

Re:Fact checking

[Mr. Slippery]

Why the immediate assumption that newspaper owners are right-wing?

Any publicly traded corporation is right-wing - in favor of the interests of investors - by definition. Many - most? - newspapers are owned by publicly traded corporations.

The only way a corporation can be left-wing - in favor of the interests of workers - is if it is worker-owned, or owned by a private group with leftist political leanings.