3 ms·

there was a good post about this, a year or two ago, where somebody couldn't get Wikipedia to publish the truth on a topic because the inaccurate information wa

there was a good post about this, a year or two ago, where somebody couldn't get Wikipedia to publish the truth on a topic because the inaccurate information was very widely cited. editors basically responded "we know this is false, but the true version isn't notable enough to mention." (tried, but failed, to find the link just now.)

GabrielF00 12y ago
You may be referring to the Philip Roth incident. (There are a number of such incidents, but this is perhaps the most famous). Essentially, the article on Roth's book The Human Stain (an excellent book by the way) cited a New York Times critic as saying that the main character may have been inspired by a particular person. Roth's agent attempted to remove this (Roth says that he was not inspired by this person). However, there was no published source that indicated that Roth felt this way, just Roth's agent's communication with Wikipedia volunteers. So Roth published an article in The New Yorker as a means of establishing a published source that could be used to refute the claim. I think the ultimate resolution was to say something like "New York Times critic says Roth was inspired by... but Roth says..." This is a case where both sides were partially right. It's perfectly encyclopedic to note that a major critic believes that an author was inspired by a particular person. However, there should have been a better mechanism for the author to establish his own version of the story. But it gets into complicated areas. Should Wikipedia just take anything that an agent sends at face value? Isn't it possible that a person isn't the best source on biography (plenty of people have self-serving and inaccurate views on themselves). Wikipedia's general philosophy is to look at what reliable sources say and summarize them rather than trying to make judgements about who is right and wrong and I think the resolution of citing both sources and letting readers decide was reasonable.
- LanceH 12y ago
  The one I'm thinking of was more straight forward than that. A person's incorrect age was taken from wikipedia and published elsewhere. Those pages were then cited as reference confirming their age, completing an unbreakable circle (by wp's rules anyway).

GabrielF00 12y ago

You may be referring to the Philip Roth incident. (There are a number of such incidents, but this is perhaps the most famous). Essentially, the article on Roth's book The Human Stain (an excellent book by the way) cited a New York Times critic as saying that the main character may have been inspired by a particular person. Roth's agent attempted to remove this (Roth says that he was not inspired by this person). However, there was no published source that indicated that Roth felt this way, just Roth's agent's communication with Wikipedia volunteers. So Roth published an article in The New Yorker as a means of establishing a published source that could be used to refute the claim. I think the ultimate resolution was to say something like "New York Times critic says Roth was inspired by... but Roth says..." This is a case where both sides were partially right. It's perfectly encyclopedic to note that a major critic believes that an author was inspired by a particular person. However, there should have been a better mechanism for the author to establish his own version of the story. But it gets into complicated areas. Should Wikipedia just take anything that an agent sends at face value? Isn't it possible that a person isn't the best source on biography (plenty of people have self-serving and inaccurate views on themselves). Wikipedia's general philosophy is to look at what reliable sources say and summarize them rather than trying to make judgements about who is right and wrong and I think the resolution of citing both sources and letting readers decide was reasonable.

LanceH 12y ago
The one I'm thinking of was more straight forward than that. A person's incorrect age was taken from wikipedia and published elsewhere. Those pages were then cited as reference confirming their age, completing an unbreakable circle (by wp's rules anyway).