http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/nyregion/15myspace.html?ref=nyregion
"Judge Sciarrino's order, which managed to quote both Wikipedia and 'Hamlet,' meanwhile served as something of a primer for the technologically challenged."
On 15/02/2008, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/nyregion/15myspace.html?ref=nyregion
"Judge Sciarrino's order, which managed to quote both Wikipedia and 'Hamlet,' meanwhile served as something of a primer for the technologically challenged."
-- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers
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Chris are you the new David Gerard? :)
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
Chris are you the new David Gerard? :)
Yes, unless that is a bad thing, then no. :)
You should be honored. :)
Angela
On 2/15/08, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
Chris are you the new David Gerard? :)
Yes, unless that is a bad thing, then no. :)
-- Chris Howie http://www.chrishowie.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers
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On 15/02/2008, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
Chris are you the new David Gerard? :)
Yes, unless that is a bad thing, then no. :)
Useful links relevant to working on the project are most thoroughly welcome!
- d.
On 15/02/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 15/02/2008, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
Chris are you the new David Gerard? :)
Yes, unless that is a bad thing, then no. :)
Useful links relevant to working on the project are most thoroughly welcome!
You would say that! ;)
On 15/02/2008, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/nyregion/15myspace.html?ref=nyregion
"Judge Sciarrino's order, which managed to quote both Wikipedia and 'Hamlet,' meanwhile served as something of a primer for the technologically challenged."
It's quite common for Wikipedia to be cited for background information by both judges and lawyers. I'm not sure I would do so personally...
As for that specific case, how is that newsworthy? Who would ever think that contacting someone on MySpace didn't constitute contacting them?
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 15/02/2008, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/nyregion/15myspace.html?ref=nyregion
"Judge Sciarrino's order, which managed to quote both Wikipedia and 'Hamlet,' meanwhile served as something of a primer for the technologically challenged."
It's quite common for Wikipedia to be cited for background information by both judges and lawyers. I'm not sure I would do so personally...
I'd never heard of that happening.
As for that specific case, how is that newsworthy? Who would ever think that contacting someone on MySpace didn't constitute contacting them?
No clue. I'm not so much interested in the case itself, more the fact that the judge cited Wikipedia in his order.
On Sat, Feb 16, 2008 at 1:55 AM, Chris Howie cdhowie@gmail.com wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/nyregion/15myspace.html?ref=nyregion
"Judge Sciarrino's order, which managed to quote both Wikipedia and 'Hamlet,' meanwhile served as something of a primer for the technologically challenged."
And not for the first time. In fact, we even have a whole page of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_as_a_court_source
<shameless plug> I also blogged about a similar subject last year </shameless plug>:
http://thoughtsfordeletion.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-do-they-use-us-let-me-co...
The article doesn't seem to mention how Wikipedia was used in the court case, but it was probably to describe the way Myspace works, using Wikipedia essentially as a primer for the topic at hand, much as one would reference a dictionary if, say, a particular word in a document were significant in a court case.
On Friday 15 February 2008, Stephen Bain wrote:
<shameless plug> I also blogged about a similar subject last year </shameless plug>:
To continue the shameless I just posted how often court citations are misunderstood :).
[[http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/wikipedia/judicial-notice
2008 Feb 15 | Reference works and judicial notice
The import of the use of reference works in court cases is frequently misunderstood, and in this case Wikipedia is no different. Wikipedia has been used as a source across culture (e.g., in cartoons, on TV), by governments -- for different reasons -- and a lot of attention is given to examples of Wikipedia as a court source. Seemingly, if a court cites a reference work it connotes authority and legitimacy upon the source. However, the legal meaning is quite different: the principle of judicial notice applies to information introduced into the court record that is so commonplace that it cannot be refuted. It is not a case of authoritative or expert evidence being recognized, as it is often misunderstood to be, but closer to a recognition of popular notability.
Britannica was quite famous for its misleading and sentimental advertisements in the 1950s and 60s including an exaggerated claim about the courts, as Harvey Einbinder discusses:
The educational director of the Britannica supplied a good illustration of these dubious claims when he asserted in an advertisement in the Library Journal (November 1, 1954): "It is so universally accepted as an authority that courts of law admits ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA as evidence."... However, it is an elementary legal principle that judicial notice can only be taken of scientific facts or matters that are generally or universally known, and which therefore can be found and encyclopedias, dictionaries or other reference works. These facts must be matters of common knowledge -- and not questions where a difference of opinion exists. Thus the scientific treatise is and encyclopedias may be consulted by judges, but they are not evidence. One reason for this rule is that they cannot be placed under oath and cross-examined. Another is that citations in one book may be contradicted by other books unknown to the court. (Einbinder 1964:314-315)
So, first, Wikipedia is not the first reference work to be used, or misunderstood, in this way. Second, the interesting thing that is happening here is the degree to which a reference work's selections are an appropriate proxy for judicial notability, and a reliance upon Wikipedia perhaps indicates a more up to date, but also much more expansive, scope: print encyclopedias rarely ever exceeded a hundred thousand articles, the English Wikipedia has millions.
]]
Joseph Reagle wrote:
On Friday 15 February 2008, Stephen Bain wrote:
<shameless plug> I also blogged about a similar subject last year </shameless plug>:
To continue the shameless I just posted how often court citations are misunderstood :).
2008 Feb 15 | Reference works and judicial notice
The import of the use of reference works in court cases is frequently misunderstood, and in this case Wikipedia is no different. Wikipedia has been used as a source across culture (e.g., in cartoons, on TV), by governments -- for different reasons -- and a lot of attention is given to examples of Wikipedia as a court source. Seemingly, if a court cites a reference work it connotes authority and legitimacy upon the source. However, the legal meaning is quite different: the principle of judicial notice applies to information introduced into the court record that is so commonplace that it cannot be refuted. It is not a case of authoritative or expert evidence being recognized, as it is often misunderstood to be, but closer to a recognition of popular notability.
...
So, first, Wikipedia is not the first reference work to be used, or misunderstood, in this way. Second, the interesting thing that is happening here is the degree to which a reference work's selections are an appropriate proxy for judicial notability, and a reliance upon Wikipedia perhaps indicates a more up to date, but also much more expansive, scope: print encyclopedias rarely ever exceeded a hundred thousand articles, the English Wikipedia has millions.
Good point. I think that some Wikipedians still need to learn that the demand for substantiation can sometimes be taken to extremes when they expect proof for "facts" that are a part of common knowledge. This is not to say that all common knowledge should go by unchallenged, but real challenges should be based on genuine doubt rather than a mere absence of documentation. If this is good enough for the courts we too should have our own "judicial notice" provisions.
Ec
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I think that some Wikipedians still need to learn that the demand for substantiation can sometimes be taken to extremes when they expect proof for "facts" that are a part of common knowledge.
In my experience, often the users know better and they're just gaming the system--they want to delete something they know very well is true, so they insincerely question it. If they get lucky nobody will provide a source and they can delete it.
Ken Arromdee wrote:
In my experience, often the users know better and they're just gaming the system--they want to delete something they know very well is true, so they insincerely question it. If they get lucky nobody will provide a source and they can delete it.
Yet another reason to reiterate the point that "citation needed" means "so, in the meantime, readers take this with a grain of salt", and *not* "or else it will be deleted".
On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 2:02 PM, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2008, Ray Saintonge wrote:
I think that some Wikipedians still need to learn that the demand for substantiation can sometimes be taken to extremes when they expect proof for "facts" that are a part of common knowledge.
In my experience, often the users know better and they're just gaming the system--they want to delete something they know very well is true, so they insincerely question it. If they get lucky nobody will provide a source and they can delete it.
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I doubt their gaming the system to delete something as universally as you assert. I'll frequently do the very thing you're saying not to get something deleted, but just discourage laziness. I don't hold to my guns and rarely persue it more then a day or two, but it helps fight the slow laxing of sourcing rules that will inveritably happen over time just by allowing such things. If we allow them, but still make a fuss every now and then, it keeps the hole in OR confined to statements such as 'john lennon was a man' and keeps us from having to deal a year down the road with talk page messages along the lines of 'but everyone KNOWS the Egyptian empire lasted till whenever, i dont need to source that!'