This kind of stuff happens all the time and it's really disappointing. Wikipedia is a good starting place for learning about things, but if you're publishing something and citing Wikipedia then something is seriously wrong.

If you're using Wikipedia for anything more than casual learning, then you'd better make sure that you can find another source to confirm what you find (and make sure that that source doesn't cite Wikipedia).

I'd take your statement one step further: if you are citing anything that isn't a primary source, you're very likely "doing it wrong".

Sources like Wikipedia or other encyclopedias are good for beginning to understand the topic, and finding relevant primary sources.

I completely agree with you.

That is kind of why it always annoys me when somebody intentionally puts an error into Wikipedia. The message that usually comes out in the media is that Wikipedia isn't that should be used for finding primary sources, but that Wikipedia can be blatantly wrong and can't be trusted.

It seems like the message most educators get and send is that Wikipedia has little academic value, when it really is great as a starting point.

A valid point. I don't mind hoaxes too much though, because a) they incrementally improve editing standards on WP and b) I'm starting to think that the form of someone's reaction to WP tells you a lot about their thinking process, or lack thereof.

Yeah, I don't really have a problem with the editing standards on Wikipedia. The article mentions that the changes where almost immediately reversed several times.

Right now encyclopedia companies seem to be operating on accuracy through obscurity, believing that if they control who edits the textbook, the results would have an acceptable level of accuracy. And that method can get good results. But that also means open encyclopedias will be viewed as more inaccurate for awhile, which means the errors are more public. I'm sure that everyone has had teachers complain about the accuracy of some textbooks, but those errors don't usually make news stories.

So I see hoax edits as somewhat comparable to a programmer intentionally putting a back door or easily exploitable code into open source software. The attempt could bring up problems with the code submittal process, and I'm sure that most well-run projects would quickly fix the error. But if the media got a hold of the story, it would not help convince technical managers and CIOs to take open source software seriously.

I agree that primary sources should be used to validate facts, but I do reference Wikipedia when the editors have expressed a thought very well and I quote or paraphrase it in a paper- just to give credit where it is due! I find myself quoting Wikipedia a lot in such cases- but I always validate any facts by looking at the sources.

Absolutely. I get really skeeved out when I find books referencing Wikipedia as a source-- which translates in my head to "some random guy on the Internet said...."

There are some lazy and irresponsible journalists out there. Speedy delivery and hype is often more important than correctness.

In my country we have an old saying "If the papers say that your sister is a whore, good luck proving you don't even have a sister!"

I don't think it's simply a case of "some lazy and irresponsible journalists" - standards generally seem to have slipped. Shane Fitzgerald was intereviewed on the radio here in Ireland earlier today by the former editor of a national Sunday newspaper, a thoughtful and well-read fellow. With his first question, the interviewer invited Mr Fitzgerald to explain how the stunt had highlighted a flaw with Wikipedia.

>There are some lazy and irresponsible journalists out there.

It's just the nature of the beast these days. With the revenue slowly disappearing, journalists have to provide cheaper articles. That's why almost every news article is a recycled press release or, like this case, poorly researched.

It's quite sad IMHO; if news is delivered online, there will be a massive dilution of revenue. There may never again be enough money in journalism to do extensively researched articles. Short of people doing it out of the good of their own hearts. Time will tell I guess.

Yeah, the funny thing is that the quote has been removed from Wikipedia but it will live longer in the print versions of the various newspapers. Wikipedia was what it was supposed to be - imperfect but self-healing. The supposed alternative to Wikipedia, "real scholarship", failed entirely at being better than Wikipedia and indeed was shown to be worse.

Also, a journalist did not have to avoid Wikipedia to do a better job, they just had to use to the history feature and see the pre-death entry.

I would say it would be an interesting experiment to see if the moderators on wikipedia now feel the the quote can be left there, seeing as it can now reference the newspaper articles that it spawned...

This type of circular reference has happened before: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090211/1249253735.shtml

A problem with Wikipedia is that it only presents you with a snapshot view. Yes, the diff tools are right there but sadly people don't use them enough. I think it would go a long way to have a simple indication of frequently changing or recently changed content in the default article view (eg, content added in the last week highlighted in yellow, items removed in the last week in lined-out and grayed text). Something like this probably would not have prevented the problem presented in this article (which is apparently that some reporters are lazy), but it would be a big improvement, IMO.

You could prototype that as a Firefox-extension. Seems worth a try.

As a grade-schooler I was always taught to find 2 sources that could not be an encyclopedia, and this was before Wikipedia.

I understand the need to get information out when it's breaking news, but it seems editors are getting the same itchy trigger fingers we have associated with the bloggers & tweeters. They should be embarrassed at best, and probably reprimanded.

Quite, and the same used to be an iron rule of journalism. The whole benefit of (any-)pedia is to guide you to those sources by presenting them in a meaningful context.

I get just as irritated by people who reflexively say 'you cited wikipedia LOL fail' which is usually an excuse to avoid reading something that contradicts or undermines their argument. Entertainingly, if you give the same person links to the sources cited in a given article, they'll just as often complain about 'ivory tower elitism'. teh stupid, it burns :-(

Stuff like this makes me think that maybe Grover should start doing "primary source, secondary source" on Sesame Street right after "near, far". Its becoming that basic and that important.

I'll note that there are many religions in the world, and at most one of them can be correct. Some of these faiths require you to believe things which are much less likely than Maurice Jarre saying what Fitzgerald had him saying.

My point is that it's not very impressive to make lots of people believe things that aren't true.

I agree with you in the general case, but when some of those people are journalists who work for respected newspapers, then it becomes...maybe not impressive, exactly, but certainly significant.

Journalists have a responsibility to make sure they're printing the truth. It's really distressing to know that there are some out there who are so lazy. This particular example isn't that big of a deal, but it's easy to imagine something similar happening with something more important.

Reminds me somewhat of the story of Demomotus.

A notable ancient greek philosopher for 5-6 months or so: http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/demomotus.htm

"The quote had no referenced sources and was therefore taken down by moderators of Wikipedia within minutes. However, Fitzgerald put it back a few more times until it was finally left up on the site for more than 24 hours."

Still not too shabby.

a joke in a poor taste, but amusing none the less...

I think it's worth giving the student some credit for not adding something embarrassing:

While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone’s death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote so as not to distort or taint Jarre’s life, he said.

FWIW, I'm positive Jarre would be offended.