Wikiparrots!

[cognos]

You read it here first! Allow me to add a new term to the "modern" vernacular:" Wikiparrot.


Wikiparrot: a person who repeats what they have found on Wikipedia (where consensus opinion masquerades as knowledge), often pretending that they actually know the answer to the original question... listening carefully to every bit of a casual conversation or discourse, ready to backcheck every purported fact or figure, no matter how trivial, they are always ready to point out some tiny flaw in what someone has said about the subject at hand. Often accompanied by a puppy-dog grin that looks like they are waiting for someone to pat them on the head.

I just had a colleague yell across the lab at me, and ask me what the correction constant for some ballpark conversion test he was doing... he knows it, I know he knows it, it had just slipped his mind.

I yelled back: "5 will do."

He yells back: Ok! I got it." I know this guy. What he means, is, he remembers the correct constant now.

The Wikiparrot across the room - after 20 or so seconds fiddling with his "smart" phone - chirps up, and says: "No, that's wrong, it's 5.0162."

Jeez... I think they named those things right. Often, the phones are indeed smarter than the users...