Wikipedia Hoax

[Shotgun 1]

This is great:

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DUBLIN -

When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he said he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's made-up quote — which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 — flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India.

They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia quickly caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it, but not quickly enough to keep some journalists from cutting and pasting it first.

A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets in an e-mail and the corrections began.

"I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia.

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

. . .

"The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the readers' editor at the Guardian, Siobhain Butterworth, in the May 4 column that revealed Fitzgerald as the quote author.

. . .

Wow, I would never quote Wikipedia in a school paper. I can't believe that "professional" journalists would do this.

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090512/ap_on_hi_te/eu_ireland_wikipedia_hoaxer

[warpedskydiver 0]

Wiki is one of the last places I search.

The only thing in wiki worth looking at is the citation sources if you need a lead on research.

[billvon 2,400]

>Wiki is one of the last places I search.

Actually this report details how Wikipedia has better fact checking than the "real" media.

[jtnesbitt 0]

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The only thing in wiki worth looking at is the citation sources if you need a lead on research.

+1

I have to admit i used it for this purpose quite often in school.

"If this post needs to be moderated I would prefer it to be completly removed and not edited and butchered into a disney movie" - DorkZone Hero

[Shotgun 1]

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Wiki is one of the last places I search.

The only thing in wiki worth looking at is the citation sources if you need a lead on research.

Actually, it's one of the first places I tend to look for information. I use it almost every day for one thing or another. And most of the info is accurate. I just wouldn't quote it in a school paper or any kind of professional publication, or anything like that. I might find something on it that I want to use in a paper, but I'd find it in another more reliable source before actually using the information.

And I agree that the citations are good leads for further info on the topics.

[TrophyHusband 0]

our english professor told us on day one NOT to cite wikipedia as a source. i does provide a great starting point though. you just have to verify and cite the info from another source.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[Shotgun 1]

After posting this, I just remembered an article I recently read about a doctor who made up a fake medical condition called "cello scrotum" many years ago, had it published in a medical journal, and even had it referenced several times by the medical community:

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A top doctor has admitted her part in hoodwinking a leading medical journal after inventing a medical condition called "cello scrotum".

Elaine Murphy - now Baroness Murphy - dreamt up the painful complaint in the 1970s, sending a report to the British Medical Journal.

She came clean when the hoax resurfaced in the 2008 Christmas edition.

A BMJ spokesman said the inclusion and subsequent debunking of "cello scrotum" had "added to the gaiety of life".

"Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realise the physical impossibility of our claim"
Baroness Murphy

The spoof was inspired by a report of a phenomenon called "guitar nipple", which reportedly occurred when the edge of the guitar was pressed against the breast, causing irritation.

"We thought it highly likely to be a spoof, and decided to go one further by submitting a similar phenomenon in cellists, " wrote Murphy - and her husband, in the latest edition of the journal.

"Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realise the physical impossibility of our claim.

"Somewhat to our astonishment, the letter was published."

Baroness Murphy, formerly a professor at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in London, did not sign the 1974 letter herself, fearing that she might get into trouble.

Her husband John, now chairman of a Suffolk brewery, signed it instead.

Scrotal flak

The couple said that they had been "dining out" on the hoax for years, but decided to confess after seeing "cello scrotum" referenced in an article last month in the journal.

A spokesman for the BMJ said that, 34 years on, no-one faced the sack for failing to spot the implausible condition.

He said: "We did, actually, get a letter from another doctor at the time pointing out how unlikely it was.

"We may have to organise a formal retraction or correction now. Once these things get into the scientific literature, they stay there for good. But it all adds to the gaiety of life."

His point was illustrated by a brief search of other medical journals - with "cello scrotum" referenced several times over the years, including by one scholar who debated whether it was in fact an awkward contact with the chair, rather than the instrument itself, that might be the source of irritation.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/health/7853564.stm

Yikes!

[riddler 0]

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Actually, it's one of the first places I tend to look for information.

+1. I hear other people say "google it", I say "wiki it". I use the Wiki widget on my iPhone more than the Google one. Information evolves over time and Wiki has a great model for improvement of information. But yeah, people need to know that you need to check the cited sources. I'm always disappointed with the citation pages don't come up. They really need a "cache" feature, like Google's.

This article only proves how irresponsible the media is - nothing new to skydivers It doesn't reflect poorly on Wikipedia, IMO, in fact, it demonstrates Wiki's strengths.

http://xkcd.com/285/

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[shropshire 0]

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oOur eEnglish professor told us on day one NOT to cite wikipedia as a source. i It does provide a great starting point though. yYou just have to verify and cite the info from another source.

So did you pass your English exams?

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[gjhdiver 0]

Wikipedia is a great starting point for just about anything.

However, it's the starting point, not the ending point of your journey.

[jcd11235 0]

Quote

Quote

oOur eEnglish professor told us on day one NOT to cite wWikipedia as a source. i It does provide a great starting point though. yYou just have to verify and cite the info from another source.

So did you pass your English exams?

Pssst … you missed one.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[shropshire 0]

Yeap, I'm shite too

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[TrophyHusband 0]

i only got an A-, but if you notice, i rarely capitalize my internet posts and almost never check my spelling. on the other hand, when i send texts, i always use proper spelling, grammer, punctuation, ect. i find an odd sort of humor in doing so using a medium where everyone else abbreviates everything to the nth degree. i'm probably the only one that is amuzed by it though.

"Your scrotum is quite nice" - Skymama
www.kjandmegan.com

[lawrocket 3]

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Wiki is one of the last places I search.

The only thing in wiki worth looking at is the citation sources if you need a lead on research.

It's the first place I go. It provides some breadth if I realy don't know much about something or where to start. Then I can get the basics answered and move on to other sources, either via the links provided or by doing other searches.

I've now got an understanding of how non-euclidean geometry works. I'm not going to be doing the calculations, etc., but because of Wikipedia I've got an idea about what it does and its applications.

I think it's a marvelous resource!

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[shropshire 0]

Lazy git

(.)Y(.)
Chivalry is not dead; it only sleeps for want of work to do. - Jerome K Jerome

[vortexring 0]

A significant problem is that journalists no longer have the time to fully research a story properly, never minding the deliberate lies, PR, propaganda and spin!

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'

[billvon 2,400]

>A significant problem is that journalists no longer have the time to fully
>research a story properly . . .

Sure they do. Reporters for both NPR and the Wall Street Journal are significantly more accurate than average mainstream media reporting (although not 100% accurate, of course.) However, that sort of news doesn't sell. If there's a beauty pageant winner controversy, people want to know about it RIGHT NOW. And if it's not on CNN's website, they go to Yahoo.

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And if it's not on CNN's website, they go to Yahoo.

I'm not sure why you threw Yahoo in with CNN. (Instantaneous news?) I find Yahoo to be a good place to go for news - lots of different sources (including NPR) in one place.

[billvon 2,400]

>I'm not sure why you threw Yahoo in with CNN. (Instantaneous news?)

Yes. People choose instant news over vetted news.

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>I'm not sure why you threw Yahoo in with CNN. (Instantaneous news?)

Yes. People choose instant news over vetted news.

Some people. I think most of us choose both, and Yahoo contains both. (Which I'm sure you know; I was just curious about your comment.)

Anyhow, it's nice having the web, with so many different sources of information. We probably get a better picture now of what's really going on, compared to when we just had TV or radio, and so on. And without having to listen to the stuff we don't care about (beauty pageants) in order to hear the stuff we do care about.

[vortexring 0]

But wanting the news 'RIGHT NOW' as you put it, is a large part of the problem, as journo's are therefore under a time pressure and can't research their piece properly. The internet news sites such as Yahoo generally just copy one another; it's recycled news.

'for it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "chuck 'im out, the brute!" But it's "saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot.'