Wikipedia, courts, and anonymity

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Wikipedia has been cited in more than 100 judicial opinions since 2004, including 13 from federal circuit courts of appeal, according to the NYT. The article implies this is a trend:

A simple search of published court decisions shows that Wikipedia is frequently cited by judges around the country, involving serious issues and the bizarre — such as a 2005 tax case before the Tennessee Court of Appeals concerning the definition of “beverage” that involved hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, just this week, a case in Federal District Court in Florida that involved the term “booty music” as played during a wet T-shirt contest.

The article then cites pro and con takes. Judge Posner has cited Wikipedia in at least one opinion, and thinks it’s O.K. as long as it’s not used to support a central fact in the case. That’s a completely reasonable stance and Cass Sunstein seems to agree with Posner even though he’s more skeptical of the practice.

I’m not sure this is a trend at all. The NYT was able to find 100 instances of citation to Wikipedia from all courts, including district courts and special masters. But consider that the federal appeals courts (excluding the Fed. Circuit and the Supreme Court) published 29,913 opinions in the 12 month period ending Sep. 2005.

I think Wikipedia is a great resource and it’s the starting point for lots of my own research, but I think that’s how self-respecting judges and scholars will use it, as a staring point. It’s not that the information on Wikipedia is necessarilly inferior. It’s not. In my view the problem is that it’s anonymous. If you rely on a book or an article for a fact, you know who to hold accountable if the fact turns out to be erroneous–the author. An author has a track record and a reputation. This is something you can scrutinize, and something the author has an incentive to protect. This is doubled when an article is peer-reviewed, and tripled when you consider publications also have reputations to uphold.

I understand Wikipedia has a bias toward correcting errors, but fairly or unfairly its reputation is inscrutable. Sure, it may have a 99% accuracy rate today, but what about tomorrow? Wikipedia is great to link to in a blog post, but in more serious published writing, a writer will also be concerned about his own reputation. Getting context from Wikipedia is very helpful, but when it comes to citation I’ll take the extra time and find another source to cite to. This is why I love that Wikipedia has begun to include its own footnoted citations for the sources of the information included in its articles. (Hat tip Joe A. for the link.)

Jan 29, 2007 | Comments Off | Tags: , , ,

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