27 May
2025
27 May
'25
8:52 p.m.
From: Paul Winalski
Wikipedia quite rightly wants citations for stated
facts and this
practice goes a long way to prevent inaccuracies. But I recall one
instance where it actually caused the establishment of a factual error.
Not rare; this pattern was the subject of an XKCD strip, "Citogenesis":
https://xkcd.com/978/
https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/978:_Citogenesis
The latter URL has a very similar story to the one you gave.
Noel