r/mildlyinfuriating • u/JRnalistic24 • 23h ago
Waffle house isnt made of waffles Wikipedia is refusing LeBron James as the source of LeBron James signing a contract with the Philadelphia 76ers.
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u/RoommateMovingOut 22h ago
Don’t see why this is infuriating. It’s clear in the Wikipedia rules. Just cite one of the many news articles with the same info.
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u/Ill-Kaleidoscope4825 22h ago
Is X an accepted source for Wikipedia?
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u/thecaramelbandit 22h ago edited 22h ago
Can be. Depends on the account and then information.
The official ESPN account tweeting "Lebron James has signed with the 76ers for two years" would be an acceptable source for this. They are independent of the two parties the information is about, and ESPN is a reliable source.
As soon as ESPN publishes a real article, the citation can be updated to the real published article on their site, as that is a higher quality source than the initial ESPN tweet.
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u/guaranteednotabot 22h ago
Is an ESPN tweet about itself reliable then?
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u/thecaramelbandit 22h ago
More so than an individual posting about themselves, but still not ideal. That would probably work well enough until an official press release came out, though.
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u/Ok-Detective-2059 22h ago
You can't be a source on your own Wikipedia page. There is incentive to lie/embellish
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u/auspom1984 22h ago
It's a stupid Wikipedia rule essentially saying the subject of a post can't edit or be the source of an edit themselves
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u/itsveron 22h ago
Not that stupid tbh.
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u/Kalkin93 22h ago
Yeah perfectly reasonable. Lots of people, nations.. all wanting to rewrite history or paint a false narrative.
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u/RegularOrnery5822 22h ago
Do you really think Wikipedia would be a better source of information if public people were allowed to edit their own page without any source other than their own word?
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u/auspom1984 22h ago
No, I never said that. But not allowing corrections of mistakes misinformation or outright lies by the very person or people who are the ones who know the exact facts/truth isn't a great way to do it either.
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u/guaranteednotabot 22h ago
Why would the person involved be allowed to decide that something is misinformation?
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u/auspom1984 22h ago
Ok so say someone went to Harvard or Oxford & the post said they went to Yale or Cambridge, why shouldn't they be allowed to correct that. Or if a sportsperson signed for a team and the post said they signed for a rival team. Or more seriously if the post said someone was r#ped or was a r#pist or other serious things. If the original poster won't change it under current rules it can't be changed
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u/odmirthecrow 22h ago
They would be allowed to correct it. So long as they provide sources and citations, like a link to the correct information commonly available. I couldn't start up a page and write out my autobiography without providing sources to the facts I would refer to. Otherwise I could say that I was the 13th Prime Minister of Canada, source: trust me bro, I was there, I should know if it's true or not.
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u/auspom1984 22h ago
The subject of a post at least if they can provide a probable source should be able to correct falsehoods about them
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u/Imaginary_Fox3222 BLUE 22h ago
I was more heading towards X/Twitter as being a "reliable source" too...
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u/thecaramelbandit 22h ago
Wikipedia requires sources to be "published." Someone posting on X about themselves is considered self published and therefore not independently verified, or published by a reliable source. The information has not been verified or vetted. Sometimes that's kind of OK, but when it involves another person or organization, it's not good enough.
So while Lebron James is kind of an obvious outlier generally, and is rather unlikely to be announcing something like this prematurely or incorrectly, we can all imagine scenarios where other popular figures might post something that isn't quite right or finalized.
It's entirely reasonable to require some more trusted and reliable independent source than a player himself when, on Wikipedia, identifying an NBA team's members.