Making the
blog-rounds, there was a Utah court case that includes
surprisingly lengthy (and generally positive) discussion on whether and
when to cite Wikipedia in court decisions:
*
http://www.utcourts.gov/opinions/appopin/fire_insurance081612.pdf
See footnote 1 (page 5) in the majority opinion, and a separate
concurring opinion filed by another judge solely on the
Wikipedia-citation question (starts on the bottom of page 7). My
favorite part is where they cite the Wikipedia article "Reliability of
Wikipedia" as part of the analysis.
Embarrassingly, the article of ours they cite, [[Jet Ski]], is actually
in a sort of sorry state. But they seem to do so only for the
relatively
mundane usage note in the opening paragraph, which explains that "Jet
Ski" is a trademark, but is often used imprecisely, in colloquial
usage,
to refer to other similar devices not manufactured by Kawasaki. I guess
the OED doesn't have a note on that yet? Or maybe they don't have OED
subscriptions over at the court? Alternately, maybe they just liked the
way we worded the explanation and wanted to quote it rather than
re-explaining the same thing in their own words.
-Mark
I think this is probably a case of the court being candid about where
they got their information. They can't use their personal knowledge even
for such instances of judicial notice, which is what this is in essence.
There is a lot of getting information by newspaper reporters, students,
anyone really who needs it which is not cited due to the supposed total
unreliability of Wikipedia regarding even the simplest facts.
Fred