> You're being downvoted because everyone knows Wikipedia is built on citations. Got a citation for that supposed common knowledge? I couldn't resist myself,

> You're being downvoted because everyone knows Wikipedia is built on citations. Got a citation for that supposed common knowledge? I couldn't resist myself, but seriously, wikipedia purports to be built on citations but how often have you tried checking citations to see if they contain the information a wikipedia article claims? Many times I have found that information in a wikipedia article is nowhere to be found in the citations given. People often claim as I just have, criticizing wikipedia without providing specific examples, which wikipedia apologists seize on to dunk on the criticism. I don't think this is fair, keeping logs of wikipedia errors is a tedious hobby that most people aren't going to bother with for a number of reasons (because correcting wikipedia means wading into the bureaucracy which produced/permitted the errors in the first place, because 'everybody knows' that wikipedia is riddled with bullshit and pointing it out is thankless, etc) Nevertheless, I do have a specific example off the top of my head, which I found a few days ago: > Brilliant Pebbles was a non-nuclear system of satellite-based interceptors designed to use high-velocity, watermelon-sized, teardrop-shaped projectiles made of tungsten as kinetic warheads.[64][65] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#Brilliant_Pebbles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative#B... This sentence has two citations, and has the smell of truthiness. Tungsten kinetic impactors in space? I've heard that before somewhere, it sure sounds true! Besides, pebbles are like rocks, and a big ball of tungsten is like a rock. It all seems to jive and the claim has survived on this page for almost a decade. The problem? It's bullshit and neither of those citations back it up. Follow either citation and look for any claim of the PB interceptors being made out of tungsten; neither citation claims it. And if you read what they actually say about the interceptors, you'll see that tungsten interceptors don't even make sense in the first place. The Brilliant Pebbles system was meant to put thousands of tiny "hit to kill" (kinetic) interceptors into orbit, which would detect and intercept ballistic missile launches during the boost phase. To do that, they would need to be nimble, and to be nimble they would need to not be a watermelon sized chunk of tungsten. You can't move that much tungsten around quick on very short notice without large rocket motors, but those citations describe tiny interceptors. Furthermore, launching thousands of chunks of tungsten like that into orbit would scarcely be practical, even by SDI standards of practicality. And why would tungsten even be needed? They're meant to intercept ballistic missiles during the boost phase; just about anything more substantial than a sea gull should get the job done. If you want to get this fixed, be warned that this bullshit has been copied from wikipedia into 'reputable' publications like Popular Mechanics. So have fun explaining XKCD #978 to a wikipedian editor. I'll leave it for you to fix, if you care.