Over at Concurring Opinions, Dan Solove writes about Cass Sunstein's op-ed in the Washington Post. Dan finds the following statistic provided by Sunstein to be "quite amazing":
"In the past year, Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that 'anyone can edit,' has been cited four times as often as the Encyclopedia Britannica in judicial opinions, and the number is rapidly growing."
This statistic is accurate (well, maybe he should have said nearly four times as often). Lexis shows the following hits:
"encyclopedia britannica" and date(geq (2/23/06) and leq (2/23/07)) = 21 Hits
wikipedia and date(geq (2/23/06) and leq (2/23/07)) = 81 Hits
Sunstein declares that "Wikipedia has become the most influential encyclopedia in the world, consulted by judges as well as those who cannot afford to buy books." While citation counts are often useful and I have used them in my own research, this provides a forum to recognize their limitations. For example, in Gashi v. U.S. AG, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 423, the hit comes from footnote one which states: "Wikipedia is a free internet encyclopedia that is collaboratively written by its readers and can be edited by anyone." Is this the type of citation that shows wikipedia has "influence"? For the most part, however, most of the citations to wikipedia arise from the court providing a citation for factual information.
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Posted by: iknowall | June 01, 2007 at 12:54 PM
I also wonder if it isn't just the penchant for clerks to over-cite. From what I read of law reviews, one can no longer claim that the sky is blue without a source ("see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation").
Also: If Frank is right, we ought also to see increasing citations to that other wiki-miracle, Urban Dictionary.
Posted by: Christopher Zorn | February 26, 2007 at 07:56 AM
I would want to explore this a little further. What exactly is Wikipedia cited for? Does the Britannica even have any relevant listing, over which Wikipedia was chosen? It may be that Wikipedia is cited for pop culture/current events topics that other encyclopediae don't yet address.
Posted by: frankcross | February 25, 2007 at 07:48 PM
It seems hard to disentangle what this tells us about Wikipedia's credibility from what it tells us about how convenient it is to search wikipedia, and the comprehensiveness of its coverage. Regardless, it is unequivocal evidence of Wikipedia's centrality.
Posted by: David Tannenbaum | February 24, 2007 at 05:06 PM
I wonder if there is a generational component here driven by law clerks. It seems likely that younger lawyers have much more relative exposure and comfort with Wikipedia than Encyclopedia Britannica. bh.
Posted by: William Henderson | February 24, 2007 at 03:09 PM