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I'm pretty sure there is an XKCD about this.

Didn't we conclude yesterday that there was a fundamental flaw in the original author's assumptions in how tips get reported and preliminary evidence suggests Taxi drivers are now making less?

Now that a major tech publication has picked up the story it may legitimately be cited as fact in a Wikipedia article.

Now that a major tech publication has picked up the story it will probably also go as an unquestioned anecdote in a thousand VC pitches.



The XKCD is a little different:

1) Find (false) fact on Wikipedia. 2) Include fact in your important paper (journal, etc) 3) Fact is found on wikipedia to be false, and is removed 4) Fact is later found in your journal, and is then added to Wikipedia with a reference to your important findings. 5) Fact cannot be removed because it was been referenced from a journal


The missing step:

6) Since the fact is attributed to your journal, it is only relevant to document what your journal says. Wikipedia article gets updated to reflect the fact your journal is wrong.




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