Wikipedia’s Credibility Is Toast

Just something to be aware of. For stuff like this – names of inventors etc. – it's best to look for corroboration in 20th-century (pre-Wikipedia) sources.

The same thing happened with the inventor of the hair straightener; Google and Wikipedia were fooled for years, giving names like Erica Feldman and Ian Gutgold, which had been inserted in Wikipedia to replace Madam C. J. Walker.

Google is after all not in the reference work business, but in the advertising business. It's happy enough to deliver information that's good enough for people to come back again and again.

Wikipedia is by and large based on the same principle. It contains some truly excellent content as well as a lot of dross.

The wikipedia "death spiral" is:

1. Idiot/malicious user makes fake edit on wikipedia - but plausible.

2. Journalist looks up article on wikipedia.

3. Another user challenges the edit. But now you can reference article by Journalist in step 2 as a valid source.