the admissibility of Wikipedia

Wikipedia Too Malleable to Be Reliable Evidence

By Mary Pat Gallagher

New Jersey Law Journal

April 22, 2009

A New Jersey judge who allowed a lawyer to plug an evidentiary gap with a Wikipedia page has been reversed on the ground that the online encyclopedia that "anyone can edit" is not a reliable source of information.

"[I]t is entirely possible for a party in litigation to alter a Wikipedia article, print the article and thereafter offer it in support of any given position," an appeals court held. "Such a malleable source of information is inherently unreliable and clearly not one 'whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned,'" such as would support judicial notice under New Jersey Evidence Rule 201(b)(3).

 

hat tip:  Sharon Blackburn, Texas Tech librarian extraordinaire

 

(njs)