Texas Supreme Court Is Skeptical About Wikipedia As A Dictionary

from the the-things-courts-debate dept

This is an interesting opinion from the Texas Supreme Court on citing Wikipedia as a dictionary. The underlying case involves an article in D Magazine titled "The Park Cities Welfare Queen." The article purports to show that the plaintiff, Rosenthal, "has figured out how to get food stamps while living in the lap of luxury." After publication, evidence emerged that the plaintiff had not committed welfare fraud. She sued the magazine for defamation.

The appeals court denied the magazine's anti-SLAPP motion in part because it held the term "Welfare Queen," as informed by the Wikipedia entry, could be defamatory. The Texas Supreme Court affirms the anti-SLAPP denial, but it also criticizes the appeals court for not sufficiently examining the entire article's gist. Along the way, the court opines on the credibility and validity of Wikipedia as a dictionary. TL;DR = the Supreme Court says don't treat Wikipedia like a dictionary.

Apologies for the block quoting, but here's the detail:

Wikipedia is a self-described "online open-content collaborative encyclopedia." Wikipedia: General Disclaimer, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer (last visited Mar. 13, 2017). This means that, except in certain cases to prevent disruption or vandalism, anyone can write and make changes to Wikipedia pages. Wikipedia: About, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About (last visited Mar. 13, 2017). Volunteer editors can submit content as registered members or anonymously. Id. Each time an editor modifies content, the editor's identity or IP address and a summary of the modification, including a time stamp, become available on the article's "history" tab. Jason C. Miller & Hannah B. Murray, Wikipedia in Court: When and How Citing Wikipedia and Other Consensus Websites Is Appropriate, 84 ST. JOHN'S L. REV. 633, 637 (2010). Wikipedia is one of the largest reference websites in the world, with over "70,000 active contributors working on more than 41,000,000 articles in 294 languages." Wikipedia: About, supra.

References to Wikipedia in judicial opinions began in 2004 and have increased each year, although such references are still included in only a small percentage of opinions. Jodi L. Wilson, Proceed with Extreme Caution: Citation to Wikipedia in Light of Contributor Demographics and Content Policies, 16 VAND. J. ENT. & TECH. L. 857, 868 (2014). These cites often relate to nondispositive matters or are included in string citations. But, some courts "have taken judicial notice of Wikipedia content, based their reasoning on Wikipedia entries, and decided dispositive motions on the basis of Wikipedia content." Lee F. Peoples, The Citation of Wikipedia in Judicial Opinions, 12 YALE J. L. & TECH. 1, 3 (2009–2010). While there has been extensive research on Wikipedia's accuracy, "the results are mixed—some studies show it is just as good as the experts, [while] others show Wikipedia is not accurate at all." Michael Blanding, Wikipedia or Encyclopædia Britannica: Which Has More Bias?, FORBES (Jan. 20, 2015), http://www.forbes.com/sites/hbsworkingknowledge/2015/01/20/wikipedia-or-encyclopaediabritannica-which-has-more-bias/#5c254ac51ccf.

Any court reliance on Wikipedia may understandably raise concerns because of "the impermanence of Wikipedia content, which can be edited by anyone at any time, and the dubious quality of the information found on Wikipedia." Peoples, supra at 3. Cass Sunstein, legal scholar and professor at Harvard Law School, also warns that judges' use of Wikipedia "might introduce opportunistic editing." Noam Cohen, Courts Turn to Wikipedia, but Selectively, N.Y. TIMES (Jan. 29, 2007), http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/technology/ 29wikipedia.html. The Fifth Circuit has similarly warned against using Wikipedia in judicial opinions, agreeing "with those courts that have found Wikipedia to be an unreliable source of information" and advising "against any improper reliance on it or similarly unreliable internet sources in the future." Bing Shun Li v. Holder, 400 F. App'x 854, 857 (5th Cir. 2010); accord Badasa v. Mukasey, 540 F.3d 909, 910–11 (8th Cir. 2008).

For others in the legal community, however, Wikipedia is a valuable resource. Judge Richard Posner has said that "Wikipedia is a terrific resource … because it [is] so convenient, it often has been updated recently and is very accurate." Cohen, supra. However, Judge Posner also noted that it "wouldn't be right to use it in a critical issue." Id. Other scholars agree that Wikipedia is most appropriate for "soft facts," when courts want to provide context to help make their opinions more readable. Id. Moreover, because Wikipedia is constantly updated, some argue that it can be "a good source for definitions of new slang terms, for popular culture references, and for jargon and lingo including computer and technology terms." Peoples, supra at 31. They also argue that open-source tools like Wikipedia may be useful when courts are trying to determine public perception or community norms. Id. at 32. This usefulness is lessened, however, by the recognition that Wikipedia contributors do not necessarily represent a cross-section of society, as research has shown that they are overwhelmingly male, under forty years old, and living outside of the United States. Wilson, supra at 885–89.

Given the arguments both for and against reliance on Wikipedia, as well as the variety of ways in which the source may be utilized, a bright-line rule is untenable. Of the many concerns expressed about Wikipedia use, lack of reliability is paramount and may often preclude its use as a source of authority in opinions. At the least, we find it unlikely Wikipedia could suffice as the sole source of authority on an issue of any significance to a case. That said, Wikipedia can often be useful as a starting point for research purposes. See Peoples, supra at 28 ("Selectively using Wikipedia for … minor points in an opinion is an economical use of judges' and law clerks' time."). In this case, for example, the cited Wikipedia page itself cited past newspaper and magazine articles that had used the term "welfare queen" in various contexts and could help shed light on how a reasonable person could construe the term.

However, the court of appeals utilized Wikipedia as its primary source to ascribe a specific, narrow definition to a single term that the court found significantly influenced the article's gist. Essentially, the court used the Wikipedia definition as the lynchpin of its analysis on a critical issue. As a result, the court narrowly read the term "welfare queen" to necessarily implicate fraudulent or illegal conduct, while other sources connote a broader common meaning. See, e.g., Oxford Living Dictionaries, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/welfare_queen (last visited Mar. 13, 2017) (broadly defining "welfare queen" as a "woman perceived to be living in luxury on benefits obtained by exploiting or defrauding the welfare system"); YourDictionary, http://www.yourdictionary.com/welfare-queen (last visited Mar. 13, 2017) (broadly defining "welfare queen" as a "woman collecting welfare, seen as doing so out of laziness, rather than genuine need"). In addition, and independent of the Wikipedia concerns, the court of appeals' overwhelming emphasis on a single term in determining the article's gist departed from our jurisprudential mandate to evaluate the publication as a whole rather than focus on individual statements.

A concurring opinion by Justice Guzman amplifies the concerns (FNs omitted):

Wikipedia has many strengths and benefits, but reliance on unverified, crowd-generated information to support judicial rulings is unwise. Mass-edited collaborative resources, like Wikipedia, are malleable by design, raising serious concerns about the accuracy and completeness of the information, the expertise and credentials of the contributors, and the potential for manipulation and bias. In an age when news about "fake news" has become commonplace, long-standing concerns about the validity of information obtained from "consensus websites" like Wikipedia are not merely the antiquated musings of luddites. To the contrary, as current events punctuate with clarity, courts must remain vigilant in guarding against undue reliance on sources of dubious reliability. A collaborative encyclopedia that may be anonymously and continuously edited undoubtedly fits the bill.

Legal commentators may debate whether and to what extent courts could properly rely on online sources like Wikipedia, but the most damning indictment of Wikipedia's authoritative force comes directly from Wikipedia:

"WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY"

"Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information."

"Wikipedia cannot guarantee the validity of the information found here."

"Wikipedia is not uniformly peer reviewed."

"[A]ll information read here is without any implied warranty of fitness for any purpose or use whatsoever."

"Even articles that have been vetted by informal peer review or featured article processes may later have been edited inappropriately, just before you view them."

Indeed, "Wikipedia's radical openness means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state: for example, it could be in the middle of a large edit or it could have been recently vandalized." Even if expeditiously remediated, transient errors are not always obvious to the casual reader. As Wikipedia states more pointedly, "Wikipedia is a wiki, which means that anyone in the world can edit an article, deleting accurate information or adding false information, which the reader may not recognize. Thus, you probably shouldn't be citing Wikipedia."

Apart from these candid self-assessments, which no doubt apply with equal force to other online sources and encyclopedias, a more pernicious evil lurks—"opportunistic editing." Because "[a]nyone with Internet access can write and make changes to Wikipedia articles" and "can contribute anonymously, [or] under a pseudonym," reliance on Wikipedia as an authoritative source for judicial decision-making incentivizes self-interested manipulation. Case in point: a Utah court of appeals recently described how the Wikipedia definition of "jet ski" provided "stronger support" for one of the parties in a subsequent appeal than it had when considered by the court in the parties' previous appeal. The court observed the difficulty of discerning whether the change was instigated by the court's prior opinion, perhaps "at the instance of someone with a stake in the debate."

Still, some have argued Wikipedia is "a good source for definitions of new slang terms, for popular culture references, and for jargon and lingo including computer and technology terms." Perhaps, but not necessarily. While Wikipedia's "openly editable" model may be well suited to capturing nuances and subtle shifts in linguistic meaning, there is no assurance that any particular definition actually represents the commonly understood meaning of a term that may be central to a legal inquiry. In truth, Wikipedia's own policies disclaim the notion: "Wikipedia is not a dictionary, phrasebook, or a slang, jargon or usage guide." Whatever merit there may be to crowdsourcing the English language, Wikipedia simply lacks the necessary safeguards to prevent abuse and assure the level of certainty and validity typically required to sustain a judgment in a legal proceeding.

Take, for example, the Wikipedia entry for "welfare queen," which was first created in November 2006 by the user Chalyres. Since the entry was first drafted, 239 edits have been made by 146 users. But there is no reliable way to determine whether these edits (1) deleted or added accurate information, (2) deleted or added false or biased information, (3) were made by individuals with expertise on the term's usage, or (4) were made by individuals actually representative of the community.

As a court, one of our "chief functions" is "to act as an animated and authoritative dictionary." In that vein, we are routinely called upon to determine the common meaning of words and phrases in contracts, statutes, and other legal documents. Though we often consult dictionaries in discharging our duty, rarely, if ever, is one source alone sufficient to fulfill the task. To that end, I acknowledge that Wikipedia may be useful as a "starting point for serious research," but it must never be considered "an endpoint," at least in judicial proceedings.

Wikipedia's valuable role in today's technological society cannot be denied. Our society benefits from the fast, free, and easily-accessible information it provides. A wealth of information is now available at the touch of a few key strokes, and a community of Wikipedia editors serves to increase the accuracy and truth of that information, promoting the public good through those efforts. However, in my view, Wikipedia properly serves the judiciary only as a compendium—a source for sources—and not as authority for any disputed, dispositive, or legally consequential matter.

To punctuate her skepticism, Justice Guzman's concurrence displays this screenshot:

In a footnote, you can almost hear a sneer as she characterizes the screenshot as "Screenshot of unsaved edits to Welfare Queen." NB: Wikipedia is trivially easy to edit, but getting those edits to stick is an entirely different matter.

My Thoughts

It makes sense not to treat Wikipedia as the authoritative citation source. However, I would make the same declaration about many sources, crowd-sourced or not. Often, a range of sources is required to establish a "fact."

We especially see the trickiness of treating a single dictionary as an authoritative source, because there are often subtle but crucial differences in dictionaries' definitions of the same term. Indeed, Wikipedia self-acknowledges its limits as a dictionary. In contrast, sometimes Wikipedia is an OK citation for the zeitgeist about an issue, where the citation is for the ranges of issues rather than for the truth of any issue.

I was a little surprised that the court didn't discuss the Urban Dictionary as an alternative to Wikipedia as a dictionary (it comes up only in a reference in a footnote in Justice Guzman's opinion). What I like about Urban Dictionary is that it doesn't purport to offer a single definition of any term. Instead, it lists a range of definitions ordered by crowd-sourced voting. In my experience, the Urban Dictionary often fills in the gaps in my "street lingo" much better than any other source, so long as I use it advisedly.

I'm paying closer attention to courts' citations to online dictionaries based on my research for my Emojis and the Law paper. As bad as things are between Wikipedia and Urban Dictionary as online dictionaries, things are much worse with emojis because no credible dictionary is trying to provide definitive definitions of emojis. Eventually, as I'll argue in my paper, we'll need the equivalent of an Urban Dictionary for emojis to capture their disparate meanings across online subcommunities.

Republished from Eric Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog

Filed Under: anti-slapp, defamation, dictionary, law, texas
Companies: wikipedia

Oxford English Dictionary: Killed And Saved By The Internet

from the information-overload dept

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) describes itself -- with somewhat un-British immodesty -- as "the definitive record of the English language." It's certainly big:

The 20 volume Oxford English Dictionary is an unrivalled guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words

The Dictionary traces the evolution of over 600,000 words from across the English-speaking world through 2.4 million quotations

This is all yours for a mere £750 (about $1250). But if you're keen to adorn your bookshelves with its hefty volumes, you'd better hurry: The Telegraph reports that this may be the last edition sold as physical books:

Publishers fear the next edition will never appear in print form because its vast size means only an online version will be feasible, and affordable, for scholars.

Thanks to the Internet, then, the OED will live on in a digital form, at least. Ironically, though, it is the Internet that is killing the print version, and making production of the next edition harder than ever:

"Although the internet has made access easier," said [OED chief editor] Mr Proffitt, "it's also created the dilemma of information overload.

"In 1989, we looked for five years' recorded usage before a word entered the dictionary. Now, it's 10 years because there is so much more material to sift through."

...

He said his team working on the definition of new entries has a target of 50 to 60 words a month, slower than in the past because the world wide web has created so much more source material.

Mr Proffitt said: "I averaged about 80 when I started because, in 1989, we didn’t have computers on our desks, so there was a limit to how much you could research. The library was our primary resource."

And if that sounds slow, bear in mind that one researcher spent nine months revising definitions for the word "run." Whether or not there is a printed version, the plan is to have the next edition finished in 2034. But there could be some slippage there, if previous editions are anything to go by:

The first edition, mooted in 1858 with completion expected in 10 years, took 70 years.

So it might be best to buy the current edition while you can. As well as being "the definitive record of the English language," it will also probably become a collector's item, a monument to a pre-digital age -- and a symbol of the Internet's power both to save and destroy.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: dictionary, internet, oed, oxford english dictionary, printing
Companies: oed, oxford english dictionary

DailyDirt: Can We At Least Agree On The Meanings Of Words?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

There are all kinds of silly arguments online, but perhaps the most common are arguments over the meanings of words. Some folks like to think that words should have static definitions, and all other usage is incorrect usage. Others don't care about the exact meaning of words, and they're not careful with their word choices... or they just make up new words to fit whatever they're trying to say. Language is funny; it evolves and changes -- and sometimes people are just wrong in how they choose their words. Here are just a few examples of word meanings that hopefully don't set off some crazy semantic arguments.

• Grammar nerds (or nazis) are fuming at a new definition of "literally" which actually makes the word into a synonym for "figuratively" -- so now people who previously used "literally" incorrectly can now point to the dictionary and say they're using the word correctly. Three different dictionaries, including Merriam-Webster, have added this informal definition as a way to use the word literally for emphasis or as hyperbole. [url]
• In the 1660s, the word terrific meant frightening or horrible, but by the late 1800s, it started to mean excellent or great. The English language actually has several examples of words that have become to mean the opposite of their original definitions. [url]
• Words aren't the only components of language that can evolve different meanings -- some punctuation marks have moved beyond their formerly limited roles. The word "slash" is now a new conjunction or conjunctive adverb. It used to be funny how punctuation could change the meaning of words.... [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: conjunction, dictionary, grammar, language, literally, punctuation, semantics, slash, synonym, terrific, words

DailyDirt: More Than Words, Is All I Have To Say...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The meaning of words change all the time, and they may be changing faster than ever before. It's hard for traditional dictionaries to really keep up with new words, but linguists are trying to record and categorize all the sounds they're observing. It ain't easy, but it's interesting to keep track of all the ways our language changes as people around the world are increasingly connected. Here are just a few examples.

• Teenagers communicate in weird ways sometimes, making sounds that aren't words (but still have meaning). There's a difference between "duhhh" and "duhhyy" -- and you should be insulted by the latter. [url]
• Many terms of endearment are almost universal, like "baby" -- understandable in several different languages, but some cute names are not. Japanese women are commonly referred to as "an egg with eyes" as a compliment, but that doesn't quite translate well in English.... [url]
• According to some linguists, young women are the leaders of language fads that spread into everyday conversations. For example, Webster's New World College Dictionary (Fourth Edition) includes the use of "like" as a way to add emphasis -- as in "It's, like, hot." [url]
• Verbal profanities are stored in a different part of your brain than where most of your language skills reside, and cursing has been part of our language for centuries (if not longer). Some of the worst obscenities in Latin focus on body parts and sex, so it seems like the subject matter of curse words hasn't changed that much in a while. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: communication, cursing, dictionary, language, latin, linguistics, profanities, teenagers, terms, tone, verbal, words

Century-Old Dictionary Error Shows That 'Professionally' Edited Reference Books Make Errors Too

from the don't-freak-out dept

A couple months ago I finally got around to reading The Professor and the Madman, a book I'd actually picked up a couple years ago just because it looked interesting. It's about the creation of the very first Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and some of the characters (and I do mean characters) involved. Frankly, while the story is interesting, the book feels very padded. It's the sort of story that would have been much better as a long magazine feature rather than an entire book.

However, one thing that struck me was how the OED was basically its own version of Wikipedia at the time. After all, how do you go about cataloging every single English word ever used? Especially when there are really no other English dictionaries to speak of (at least not any that aim to be complete)? Well, you build up a massive roster of volunteers to do all the work for you. That's exactly what OED apparently did. They put out ads and flyers and built up a huge volunteer army to scour books, write down words, and highlight the definition and first usage of those words, which the OED team then assembled. The process took decades, but would have taken longer (if it would have been done at all) had it not been for the army of volunteers participating. Reading the chapters of the book about this part of the process made it sound very, very similar to Wikipedia in many ways. Of course, there was one major difference: at the end of the day, you still supposedly had the "professional" editors deciding what finally went into the book.

I'd been considering writing up a post about that similarities, but wasn't quite sure about how to fit it in, when johnjac alerted us to the story about how a physicist just discovered a 99-year old error in the OED, on the definition of the word "siphon." Apparently, the definition states that it's atmospheric pressure, rather than gravity that makes the siphon work, which is incorrect. Yet, because the OED is considered such an authority, many of the top dictionaries all make the same claim -- and some "professional" encyclopedias do as well (though, not Britannica, if you were wondering). The OED promises to correct the error, though, of course, that won't be until the next edition.

To some extent, this highlights the same point many people have made about Wikipedia for ages: both the "professionally edited" reference books and the open edited reference sources have errors. But how quickly can they be corrected? If Wikipedia had the same error, it could be corrected immediately. With OED, it appears that people needed to wait a while.

Filed Under: dictionary, editing, oxford english dictionary, professionals, siphon

Apple Now Censoring A Dictionary iPhone App?

from the really? dept

Apple's continued arbitrariness in banning iPhone apps continues in weird and somewhat incomprehensible ways. The latest getting attention (and sent in by a lot of people) is that a dictionary app called Ninjawords was forced to block out the definitions of certain words in order to get approval to be in the App Store. Even though the app itself has a 17+ rating, apparently Apple came back with a list of "objectionable" words in the dictionary which had to be removed. Never mind the fact that anyone could just go to a website with the very same device and look up those same words... Oh, and of course other dictionaries available at the App Store seem to have those same words. The article also points out that Wal-Mart -- notorious for refusing to sell "objectionable" material sells dictionaries with these sorts of words included. The whole thing is bizarre, and again makes you wonder what Apple is accomplishing with its app review process, other than pissing people off. Update: Apple has responded and explained its side of the story. They're claiming it wasn't censorship, so much as an issue of timing. The app did have what Apple felt were offensive words/definitions, and asked the developer to wait until parental controls had been turned on for the iPhone. The developer then chose to block those words to try to get the app launched prior to parental controls being in place. Fair enough... but it still seems odd that Apple should be able to object to any definitions. It's a dictionary, based on Wiktionary.org... which anyone can visit with their browser. Still, this is one of the first times we've actually seen Apple respond to one of these stories. So that's progress...

Filed Under: app store, arbitrary, dictionary, iphone, ninjawords, offensive
Companies: ninjawords

W00t! I'm The Word Of The Year! Merriam-Webster Is Totally l337!

from the m3rr14m-w3b$73r dept

Back in 2001, the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary caused a little stir with they added Homer Simpson's "Doh!" to their dictionary of the English language. Merriam-Webster has upped the ante now by not only adding "w00t" to the dictionary, but choosing it as the 2007 word of the year. Last year, "truthiness" beat out "google" for the honor. When asked about the numerical characters in word, Merriam-Webster John Webster explained that this "is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character." Um, more efficient? Hardly -- w00t is from leet speak, and the orthographic substitutions of numbers for certain letters are intended to make more secure, yet easily remembered words for passwords. Is Merriam-Webster grasping for attention? With traffic on sites like urban dictionary catching up to Merriam-Webster, perhaps they wanted to curry favor with all of the l33t kids.

Filed Under: dictionary, language
Companies: merriam-webster