

How 5-year Wikipedia hoax fooled even the subject's own company - zach
http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=1889

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dkarl
Wait, he's using an ad campaign as proof that somebody believed this stuff.
Read his links. I don't think the ad company was fooled. They wrote, "As
Wikipedia will attest to, it's all true – even Freed's inflatable shrimp
trap." They just liked the article and didn't see any reason to correct it.

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olliesaunders
_How many hundreds (thousands?) of other articles like this are sitting out in
the Wiki-ether right now, wreaking havoc and just waiting to be debunked?_

Don't think this is new. For all of history there have been pervaders of
disinformation. The only difference now is the media with which it is
distributed.

~~~
cema
Another difference is the low barrier to entry for editing. This, I think, is
a more important difference because it not only leads to much faster
corrections but also allows almost anyone to participate (in most cases).

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protomyth
I think it also happens in subtle ways with changing knowledge. I recently got
done with "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack
Weatherford. Looking at the Mongol entries in Wikipedia, I wonder how much is
sourced from European sources using Mongols as a political statement against
their own rulers and how much is taken from documents that came available in
the last 15 years.

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InclinedPlane
These sorts of things are actually good, and a reason to continue using
wikipedia in preference to other sources.

Here's the horrible truth: no other encyclopedia is any more accurate.
However, if by using a "professionally edited" encyclopedia you are lulled
into a false sense of trust then you are at a disadvantage. If instead you use
an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone and everyone on the internet,
perhaps you will retain your senses of judgment and critical thinking. Perhaps
you will double-check "facts" that seem a little fishy.

 _That_ , ultimately, is why wikipedia is a better source of information in
the long run. Any source of information compiled by any group of people will
be full of biases and errors. It's infinitely more important that the public
become more savvy information consumers, improving their critical thinking
abilities, than that any given source of information is incrementally more
"accurate" than another.

~~~
spxdcz
In some ways I agree with this sentiment, but in others I think it's deeply
flawed.

Your argument relies on a couple of deep assumptions, the main one being that
the general public know how Wikipedia is made.

Based on my (albeit anecdotal) evidence, I suspect that the vast majority of
internet users (non-technical) may not know much at all about Wikipedia. They
just look something up on the internet, find it on something that calls itself
an 'encyclopedia', and believe it. They know nothing of who has created the
page, or the checks (or lack thereof) that go into each page.

Search for a random subject on Google - e.g. 'Canada', and click on the first
result (Wikipedia, of course). How would any user know about the methodology
behind this encyclopedia? Twice on the page it refers to itself (prominently)
as "The Free Encyclopedia" - to me, as a non-technical user, that might sound
like a reliable (albeit free) source of information?

~~~
tzs
I don't think there is any need to distinguish between technical and non-
technical users. Both generally just go by what is on the page rather than
checking the references.

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scott_s
Be skeptical of your sources, always, but keep in mind that the more heavily
visited pages that are about more well-known subjects and some people consider
important are going to have more educated eyeballs checking them.

For example, I don't think an obviously made up "fact" would last very long on
the page for red-black trees.

~~~
gurtwo
Exactly. The whole story only proves no one really cared about the Julius
Freed article in the first place.

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araneae
This reminds me of some unintentional errors. Neil Gaiman recently noticed
something on Wikipedia that he had made up in a novel being treated like fact.

[http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/05/one-book-one-
twitter-o...](http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/05/one-book-one-twitter-one-
wondering.html)

------
audionerd
Ken Jennings posted a follow-up: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1397287>

Turns out DQ _did_ know the Wikipedia entry was false, but still liked the
concept of some of the far-out claims, and wrote a script around them.

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gojomo
Have possible links between prankster Joe Cassara and ad firm space150 been
investigated?

~~~
audionerd
Ken Jennings, in his follow-up post, says:

    
    
      "They had no connection with the original hoaxer"
    

<http://ken-jennings.com/blog/?p=1900>

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Confusion
Note that it wasn't actually "the subject's own company' that was fooled. It
was the PR department of the company that had acquired the subject's own
company. Why they wouldn't just ask them about noteworthy inventions instead
of using wikipedia, or at least verify with them, is beyond me.

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sliverstorm
Wait, I'm seeing a connection here. I can just hear it...

"Some say... that he invented a tiny shower suited for pigeons. All we know,
is he's called The Stig!"

