WIKIPEDIA
I read an article on my brother’s site concerning the use of Wikipedia as an information source in judicial rulings. My take on this article is that Lawyers are upset that judges reference Wikipedia to determine meanings of odd phrases and frequently updated materials. My opinion is simply this: The information obtained from Wikipedia or any other reference source, as long as it is accurate, should not be objected to it. We must all remember, a reference source is not the law. Decisions are based on the letter of the law and legal precedent not the meaning of oddball terminology. It seems to me the legal community would be better served examining what is wrong with the law than what reference is used. If I am off base, someone in the legal community please let me know.
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2 Comments
Yo. The thing is that over the period mentioned in the Times article, from 2004 on, tens if not hundreds of thousands of cases were decided in Federal Court. The fact that 100 or so cited Wikipedia is very trivial at best, hardly worthy of NYT article. It is just silly.
If I were writing case opinions (scary thought) I certainly would be very hesitant to use Wikipedia. The real issue with Wikipedia is that it isn’t authoritative, meaning that no one is checking it for accuracy and anyone can edit it. You could go to Wikipedia right now get an account and edit the article for George Bush adding a Purple Heart winning tour of duty in Viet Nam. Now someone would certainly correct that, but for a few minutes visitors to Wikipedia would get that information. Not a good thing for courts to use.
I hear ya. I guess that brings up this question: Why didn’t the “creators” (for lack of a better term), never put safeguards in to prevent some random idiot from doing editing that could erode credibility? Seems to me that would have been the smart thing to do.