Seriously? Wikipedia in Court Cases?

Well, huh.

Feminocracy points out this post at Feminist Law Professors about an article (yes, it's a long chain of referrals) exploring the extent to which Wikipedia has been cited in U.S. court cases.

According to the abstract (full text is not available), as of last month, Wikipedia had been cited nearly 300 times. The abstract further explains:

Courts cite Wikipedia for a wide range of purposes. Some citations are merely mundane references to everyday facts well known by the general public. In other opinions Wikipedia is cited as a basis for the court's reasoning or to support a conclusion about an adjudicative fact at issue in the case. In a notable recent case, Badasa, v. Mukasey, 2008 WL 3981817 (8th. Cir. 2008), The Eighth Circuit remanded a Board of Immigration Appeals decision because it upheld a lower court's finding based on information obtained from Wikipedia.

Now where I work our official position is that Wikipedia is not an irredeemable tool of the devil, but it's also not your go-to source for stuff that really matters. 

You know: look at Wikipedia, but if it's really important (as perhaps might be true when using information "as a basis for the court's reasoning or to support a conclusion about an adjudicative fact at issue in the case"), double-check with another source. 

One that has identifiable authors, and can't be edited at a whim by random passers-by.

I'm no legal scholar, so it may be that this is perfectly reasonable in some way that's not evident to me, but I have to say, I find it at least interesting that this particular resource (which certainly has clear strengths as well as weaknesses), is considered to be so reliable.

Maybe we've misjudged poor Wikipedia.

My New Wiki

So I set up a Wetpaint wiki, which was pretty easy, if somewhat frustrating (I selected a template, even though there really wasn't one that matched my brilliant concept, and then had to mess around trying to get rid of it).

I find Wetpaint a little more user-friendly than MediaWiki, which is the version I've used before, if only because it doesn't require learning a whole new set of codes to handle formatting.

I look forward to posting some dramatic photos of oddments later on.

I also looked for a way to contribute to the class wiki, as was advised, and decided to alphabetize the lists of blogs and wikis that had been posted. It's interesting and fun being part of the collaboration on a project with such a big user base!

Using Wikis

The IT office where I work uses wikis to keep track of their work processes. My office doesn't use them, so I have limited experience with them, but can see how they would be very useful in a different way from that of blogs.

While blogs provide a good way to promote events, announce news, and get the word out about things going on, wikis are a more stable, but still easily up-dateable, kind of resource.

Rather than have to make changes in policy manuals or personnel guidelines, say, which then need to be distributed to the people who need to use them, these changes could instead be made on a central site where anyone who needed to could always access them, knowing that the most recent copy would be there.

Wikis could be useful in libraries both privately for staff, who might keep track of job responsibilities and workflow processes, and publicly for users, who could access FAQ sheets, information about library policies, etc.

The ease of use means that limited special training is needed for staff to participate in updates and ensure a current version, and the many templates and backgrounds available mean that wikis can match well with a variety of needs.