[WikiEN-l] Reverberating self-reinforcing autoregenerative circular sourcing

[James Hare]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

On 12/15/06, wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com <wikipedia2006 at dpbsmith.com> wrote:
>
> See
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ivy_League#A_Rutgers.2FIvy_reference_from_the_Daily_Newsand followup, and be afraid. Be very afraid.
>
> In brief: The first known college football game took place between Rutgers
> and Princeton, and the Ivy League sort of coalesced out of a group of
> schools that had been playing each other for year. There is dispute about a
> statement that "both [Rutgers and the College of William and Mary] declined
> invitations to join the Ivy League at its formation in 1954."  Clearly there
> was discussion about what colleges should be included, and clearly Rutgers
> was talked about. But it's not so clear whether Rutgers was invited and
> declined, or whether Rutgers was considered and rejected. Or something in
> between, or both, or neither, or what. (It's like the question of whether or
> not John Bolton "resigned.")
>
> The editor who says Rutgers was invited and declined has a source that
> falls beautifully into borderline territory. He insists that he's seen it in
> microfilm copies of the Rutgers student newspaper, and that he's seen it
> recently, but declines to pin the exact citation down to anything more than
> the entire microfilm archive itself. But that's NOT the reason why I'm
> posting this.
>
> Here's the scary part.
>
> Someone found what looked like a valuable confirming source: a recent
> article in the New York Daily News that said, "Rutgers might have joined the
> fledgling Ivy League and altered its destiny. But the school declined the
> offer - arguably the dumbest mistake in its history. Ever since then,
> Rutgers has scrambled to prove itself worthy of playing football with the
> big boys."
>
> Good, right? Unfortunately the reporter did not cite his source. So
> someone contacted that reporter and asked.
>
> And, guess what: the reporter's source was the Wikipedia article.
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