[LINK] Australian Tax Office's Wikipedia bungle

Tom Worthington tom.worthington at tomw.net.au
Wed Dec 23 09:43:25 AEDT 2009


Bernard Robertson-Dunn wrote:
> Australian Tax Office's Wikipedia bungle ... Malcolm Farr ... The Daily Telegraph ... December 18, 2009
> 1:01AM ... > http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/australian-tax-offices-wikipedia-bungle/story-e6frgakx-1225811713665
> 
> THE Australian Tax Office faces international embarrassment after it 
> used the online site Wikipedia as a source for a ruling affecting the 
> fate of hundreds of millions of dollars. ...

I noticed that Google's news service is starting to cite the Wikipedia,
as well as more traditional news sources. Perhaps this should be thought
of in the same way as the use of the dictionary, which courts turn to, 
when the lawyers can't find a legal source. The dictionary is not a 
source of "facts", but a summary of the meaning and use of words. 
Similarly the Wikipedia is not a primary source of information, but a 
compendium of what those who write it think is important and is the case.

ps: Of course the truth is just my opinion. ;-)


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Lecturer, The Australian National University t: 02 61255694
Computer Science http://cs.anu.edu.au/people.php?StaffID=140274




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