Remember When Wikipedia Was Considered Suspect?

[muriel_volestrangler]

37. I still occasionally find circular Wikipedia source citations

Typically, Wikipedia was edited several years ago to assert some "fact" without a source. A journalist quickly writing an article then picks up this "fact", and inserts it in their article as background material, maybe as a paraphrase. Prompted or not, a later Wikipedia editor then looks for a source for the "fact", and uses the article - which possibly has slightly different wording to what Wikipedia by then contains. This is only obvious with careful comparison of the historical versions, the article, and timestamps.

And then you have to decide how reliable the fact is, and if your personal knowledge of the subject is enough to justify removing the source but just marking the fact as "citation needed", getting rid of it altogether, or starting a process in the Talk section in the hope others will be knowledgeable enough to have worthwhile input. And how much time you're willing to put into fact-checking this one citation.