Slashdot | False Fact On Wikipedia Proves Itself

[dracodraconis]

Slashdot | False Fact On Wikipedia Proves Itself

You may recall a previous article I posted in which the pulling of a Wikipedia entry was sufficiently newsworthy to warrant the entry being put back.

Slashdot provides a link to an article (in German) in which the full name of the minister for economic affairs (Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg) was posted to Wikipedia as Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. During the course of reviewing the article, the editorial staff demanded proof that the minister's full name did, indeed, contain the name Wilhelm. Ideally, because the post originally got his name wrong, there should be no proof of this and eventually "Wilhelm" would be dropped from his full name in the wikipedia entry.  However, a newspaper used the (incorrect) wikipedia entry to state the (incorrect) full name of the minister. Said article was then used as proof of that the minister's full name did contain the name Wilhelm so the Wikipedia entry stood as validated.