NationStates Jolt Archive

At least according to the Japanese government.

Last night in Japan a news video broke that had the Ministry of Transportation being grilled in the National Diet for its study about if Japan needs new roads and the 25 yen per litter gas tax. The opposition party (The DPJ) had found out that a lot of the data being given by said ministry was copied word by word from the ENGLISH Wikipedia. Even better, the ministry then ran the text through an online translator producing almost incomprehensible Japanese.

So remember, the next time that a teacher, professor, or Generalite yells at you that Wikipedia isn't a good source for backing up claims that if badly translated and plagiarized text is good enough for the Government of Japan, it should be good enough for them! :p

Sorry folks, I don't have an English language version of the news article yet, I'll post as soon as someone gets around to writing one.

The opposition party (The DPJ) had found out that a lot of the data being given by said ministry was copied word by word from the ENGLISH Wikipedia. Even better, the ministry then ran the text through an online translator producing almost incomprehensible Japanese.

Ugh, that's sickening. Isn't the absurd Japanese school and employment competition supposed to guarantee that only the über-educated people who aren't stupid enough to do something like this get a position in a ministry? It seems to have failed them.

And I thought that one party rule in Japan couldn't get much worse.

Class.

That is so clumsy I can almost believe it.:D

I don't understand all the fuss about using Wikipedia as a source. At the bottom of each article on Wikipedia they have a list of good references/sources and in the article they have numbers in brackets like this [1]. So when you want a source for something on Wikipedia just use the source indicated by the bracketed number next to that info.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources

I remember getting marked down in History class for using Wiki, I never did it again.

Wikipedias okay for school projects and stuff(as long as you cross-check the information) but really you can't use it for writing laws. "Na-uh, I looked it up on the Wiki" doesn't cut it in parliment.

Used in Canada before...

At least according to the Japanese government.

Last night in Japan a news video broke that had the Ministry of Transportation being grilled in the National Diet for its study about if Japan needs new roads and the 25 yen per litter gas tax. The opposition party (The DPJ) had found out that a lot of the data being given by said ministry was copied word by word from the ENGLISH Wikipedia. Even better, the ministry then ran the text through an online translator producing almost incomprehensible Japanese.

So remember, the next time that a teacher, professor, or Generalite yells at you that Wikipedia isn't a good source for backing up claims that if badly translated and plagiarized text is good enough for the Government of Japan, it should be good enough for them! :p

Sorry folks, I don't have an English language version of the news article yet, I'll post as soon as someone gets around to writing one.

LOL Not surprised at all.

Ugh, that's sickening. Isn't the absurd Japanese school and employment competition supposed to guarantee that only the über-educated people who aren't stupid enough to do something like this get a position in a ministry? It seems to have failed them.

LOL
Fass, you've been gravely misinformed. Secondary education was primarily rote memorization aimed at university exams with university education largely being a joke. Here's a prime example: PM Yoshiro Mori (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/702323.stm), who makes GWBush look pretty good in comparison.

Oh dear. Most of my professors accepted wikipedia as a source, so long as the assignment was either very small and/or it wasn't the only source used. It certainly is a good place to start looking, since it usually has sources listed on the bottom.

Ever since Wikipedia removed the page for the Noob (http://www.thenoobcomic.com/) I've had them on /ignore.