Look, I'm a professor of mathematics at a research university. If I decided to use Wikipedia as my sole source for deciding who to credit for what, my papers would get rejected when they inevitably become wrong. "it wasn't on Wikipedia" is hardly an excuse when it comes to ethics. What is known by the average Wikipedia editor is not what is known by experts in the field.
“Ethics” for what is almost certainly an honest mistake with a reasonable diligence of research? Accusing someone of ethics violations should require more research than you’ve done!
Would you have found out about those earlier sources without Wikipedia? I think it really depends on how obscure they actually were. I’d take the fact that neither Wikipedia nor this article knew about these earlier sources in 2014 as evidence that they were pretty obscure.
In an informal conversation, the equivalent of a forum like HN but with my real name? Sure, I would have no problem saying out loud and unanonymously
> "it wasn't on Wikipedia" is hardly an excuse when it comes to ethics
which is what I actually wrote, in a post where I'm not even talking about the particular situation. I expressed dismay about a failure to properly attribute ideas, and then I explained that I don't care about what was written in 2014 on Wikipedia, experts should know better anyway. If you've decided to read an accusation in what I wrote, that is absolutely on you. The most negative thing I wrote about the author was:
> You'd expect an emeritus professor to have enough time on their hands to check their sources...
And, again, I would have absolutely no problem saying that in public with my real name. I've said much "worse".
