For example... Alicia Keys birthday on Wikipedia is wrong, she was born in 1980, not 1981. If you read the Talk page about this there are several times where discussion of this takes place. But due to a Wiki Admin sitting on the page, he/she refuses to acknowledge this change and the articles he cites that she was born in 1981 most likely were using the Wikipedia article as reference. So how do you argue your position when the admin says, "Hey my source is Magazine X, it is reputable so therefore you are wrong"
For the article you mention there should be some way of getting multiple reliable sources of a birthdate.
When one person sits on a page there's verious conflict resolution measure to jump through that might help. I hate WP so I'm not going to get involved but I guess there are some admins here who might want to help you.
What's troubling about the OP is that this WP article was a good article, and so should have had some kind of thorough vetting. That's disconcerting.
Also, once an article reaches good or great (or whatever) status I'm not sure if there's any way for visitors to get that exact version of the article, rather than just what today's edit it.
However, even "professional" journalists have become so sloppy these days that it's likely that the printed source used Wikipedia as the basis for its information.
It did fail featured article review because it was missing page numbers. I can hope that if the hoaxer had then provided fictitious page numbers, someone would have looked for the sources.
>Also, once an article reaches good or great (or whatever) status I'm not sure if there's any way for visitors to get that exact version of the article, rather than just what today's edit it.
It'll be listed on the talk page, though obviously that doesn't help the average visitor. (Though, the average visitor probably wouldn't notice the good article badge in the first place.)
Going through various commitee groups on Wikpedia to get this compromise did not seem like a good use of my time
...did you not write the footnote or something?
Every official record, however, has her date of birth in 1981. On the talk page for the article, people were producing her record on the births index, on company incorporation documents, there was even someone who went to school with Ms Faith confirming she was born in 1981.
In the last couple of weeks the case went to dispute resolution and the issue has finally been resolved (i.e. her date of birth has been changed to 1981), but I was shocked by how pedantic certain users were being, refusing to correct the issue for technical reasons (the official documents are not accessible free-of-charge so could not be used as references, etc.)
What degree of certainty is needed for - looking up a subject you are generally interested in? A undergrad paper? A local newspaper journalist? A doctoral thesis?
90% of my Wikipedia usage falls in the category of self-education and general interest. Wikipedia is certainly a safe source for that.
Until you want to know about India-Portugal relations.
What? How is 'wikipedia consulting firm' a thing?
That, I think, is the greatest contribution that Wikipedia has made - it requires people to cite their sources, before they get any credibility; and even then, there is always some doubt.
What's more interesting about this article is the staggering, agressive ignorance displayed by the commenters on the India Times website. If you're interested in a dose of outrage to get your blood boiling, give them a read.
The problem is we don't know how many hoaxes are there and have _not_ been discovered. If there are a lot, then the model is failing, if there are only a few, then it is working.
Alas, without that data, we can't make a call on the wikipedia article either way.
Guess they missed the whole "deleted" flag.
However, increasingly people are using wikipedia as a first and only source of data, and this includes many of those "trusted organizations", which produces a trust loop paradox. And this is because despite all these faults wikipedia still manages to be a solid, accurate source of information most of the time.
We're not going to escape out of this paradox until primary sources become more available on the internet and we start getting articles written which make use of primary sources.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...
The article talks about an admittedly little-known clash between India and Portugal in the 1600's where there was little damage or historical consequence after. It's like an island in the ocean of wikipedia, rather than a new island inserted into a river that people pass by every day.
It'd be much harder to make up something about a little known clash between Germany and Canada during World War 2 because so many experts on WW2 exist.
