US courts have cited Wikipedia in more than 100 judicial rulings since the first such example in 2004, writes the New York Times. Wikipedia is fantastic, but should judges rely on it as a source for court decisions? Hm. That seems lazy. And as is pointed out in the story, at least there’s an inherent issue with the web that must be thought through when any web page is quoted as source: The contents of the page might change. With Wikipedia, it’s almost certain that it will change, on the other hand Wikipedia has a defining feature that the NYT story doesn’t explore – strangely. That’s the history page for each entry, where you can permalink to the version of the entry you prefer.
(Note by the way the new (?) NYT feature “Share” among the article tools, where you find the permalink to the NYT article, a link that will work after the story disappears into the pay-wall archive. Use this for blogging!). UPDATE: I misunderstood this feature. You should NOT use that permalink feature, because it results in the opposite – the story disappears behind the pay-wall! Instead, use the NYT link generator. I’ve corrected the link above.
