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In the news

Rush Limbaugh falls for Wikipedia hoax, Public Policy Initiative, Nature cites Wikipedia

Talk show host fails to heed own warnings not to rely on Wikipedia

An article in The New York Times, "Limbaugh taken in: the judge was not loaded for bear", reports that conservative US talk show host Rush Limbaugh relied on erroneous information from the Wikipedia article about federal judge Roger Vinson when he told listeners that Vinson is an avid hunter and hobby taxidermist who, in 2003, hung the stuffed heads of three bears killed by himself over a courtroom door, to "instill the fear of God" into the accused. Limbaugh insinuated that this might improve the chances of the court case against President Obama's health-care act which Vinson is currently hearing.

The hoax information had been added by a new user on September 13 (UTC), who removed it the next day. Denying that the statement was based on Wikipedia, a spokesman said it came from an article on the website of the Pensacola News Journal – coincidentally the offline reference cited in the Wikipedia article (but with a non-existent date: "June 31, 2003"). However, its managing editor denied it had ever published such an article – a point also made in its own coverage of the affair (Rush Limbaugh falls for wacky hoax about Judge Roger Vinson).

Less than a year ago, Limbaugh criticized journalists who rely on Wikipedia without fact-checking as "literal professional scum", after false quotes attributed to him in Wikiquote made it into the media (see Signpost coverage). In 2005, he criticized Wikipedia as biased and announced he would insert the word "afristocracy" into Wikipedia to "spread" it (see Signpost coverage and deletion discussion).

Student newspapers cover Wikimedia's Public Policy Initiative

After extensive articles about the Wikimedia Foundation's Public Policy Initiative had appeared in Inside Higher Ed and USA Today (see last week's In the news), two student newspapers covered it from a local perspective:

An article in George Washington University's GW Hatchet (Wikipedia recruits GW students to edit website's content) quoted Dr Joseph Cordes, associate director of the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, who had supported the three-day workshop at the school to train Wikimedia's "Campus ambassadors" (Signpost coverage), and Dr Donna Infeld, whose graduate course on public policy earlier this year had been the first at the university to offer Wikipedia assignments. One of her students was quoted regarding his experiences contributing to the article Don't ask, don't tell as part of that course.

At Georgetown University, The Hoya interviewed Professor Rochelle Davis (Wikipedia: a class tool), whose "Introduction to the study of the Arab world" course participates in the Wikipedia initiative. Correcting earlier media reports that she had assigned students to read Wikipedia, she said "some of the interviews seemed to have missed that. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I wouldn't assign my students to read it, just like I wouldn't assign them Britannica."

Also last week, Indiana University announced that a seminar at its School of Public and Environmental Affairs program would be producing public policy articles for Wikipedia, proudly describing the School as "one of five leading public-policy programs where the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind Wikipedia, is debuting its Public Policy Initiative".

See other Signpost coverage of the Public Policy Initiative: "Introducing the Public Policy Initiative", "Public policy initiative announces advisory board, starts training campus ambassadors", "Public policy initiative announces participating classes", and "Experiments with article assessment".

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