[WikiEN-l] Why trivia and popular culture items need sources

[Daniel P. B. Smith]

An editor took strong exception to my request for sources for  
"popular culture" items in the article on the Statue of Liberty. One  
of these items was:

"The New York Liberty, New York's professional women's basketball  
team, has the Statue of Liberty as their mascot."

The editor said: "The fact that the NY Liberty b-ball team uses the  
SoL as its mascot does NOT need an outside citation, for Pete's sake."

I replied that if it was all that obvious it shouldn't be that hard  
to paste in a link from the team's website. Since I try to play fair,  
I proceeded to go to the team's website myself to get the link.

Well, whaddaya know.

The team's mascot is, in fact, NOT the Statue of Liberty, but a dog  
named Maddie, for Madison Square Garden.

According to the source, http://www.wnba.com/liberty/news/ 
maddie.html , Maddie is a "loveable dog... known for a unique  
personality among the Liberty faithful." Now, to be honest, Maddie  
does wear a verdigris-colored crown, but you will have to judge for  
yourself whether it resembles the statue's; it looks to me much less  
spiky, like a green version of the Burger King's crown. In any case,  
my opinion is Maddie is quite canine, and not at all statuesque.  
Statue-of-Libertyesque? Statue-of-Libertarian?

(The statue is indeed depicted in the team's _logo_, which probably  
is why everyone assumes that it must also be the team's _mascot._)