Dangers of Wikipedia

[Graydog]

Wikipedia can be helpful and a starting point if there is no where else to look. However, never trust a pirate..er...no wait that's never trust wikipedia.

-Greydog

AP Article on Hoax

Student hoaxes world's media on Wikipedia

Phony quote appears in obituaries for French composer Maurice Jarre

By Shawn Pogatchnik

updated 7:50 a.m. PT, Tues., May 12, 2009

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."

So far, The Guardian is the only publication to make a public mea culpa, while others have eliminated or amended their online obituaries without any reference to the original version — or in a few cases, still are citing Fitzgerald's florid prose weeks after he pointed out its true origin.

"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack," Fitzgerald's fake Jarre quote read. "Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear."

Fitzgerald said one of his University College Dublin classes was exploring how quickly information was transmitted around the globe. His private concern was that, under pressure to produce news instantly, media outlets were increasingly relying on Internet sources — none more ubiquitous than the publicly edited Wikipedia.

When he saw British 24-hour news channels reporting the death of the triple Oscar-winning composer, Fitzgerald sensed what he called "a golden opportunity" for an experiment on media use of Wikipedia.

He said it took him less than 15 minutes to fabricate and place a quote calculated to appeal to obituary writers without distorting Jarre's actual life experiences.

If anything, Fitzgerald said, he expected newspapers to avoid his quote because it had no link to a source — and even might trigger alarms as "too good to be true." But many blogs and several newspapers used the quotes at the start or finish of their obituaries.

Wikipedia spokesman Jay Walsh said he appreciated the Dublin student's point, and said he agreed it was "distressing so see how quickly journalists would descend on that information without double-checking it."

"We always tell people: If you see that quote on Wikipedia, find it somewhere else too. He's identified a flaw," Walsh said in a telephone interview from Wikipedia's San Francisco base.

But Walsh said there were more responsible ways to measure journalists' use of Wikipedia than through well-timed sabotage of one of the site's 12 million listings. "Our network of volunteer editors do thankless work trying to provide the highest-quality information. They will be rightly perturbed and irritated about this," he said.

Fitzgerald stressed that Wikipedia's system requiring about 1,500 volunteer "administrators" and the wider public to spot bogus additions did its job, removing the quote three times within minutes or hours. It was journalists eager for a quick, pithy quote that was the problem.

He said the Guardian was the only publication to respond to him in detail and with remorse at its own editorial failing. Others, he said, treated him as a vandal.

"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.

Walsh said this was the first time to his knowledge that an academic researcher had placed false information on a Wikipedia listing specifically to test how the media would handle it.

[Tartan Jack]

Wikipedia is OK for a quick over-view and to provide some basic understanding for FURTHER research.

One thing I have found is that it manages to explain complex stuff simply, esp. how things work and the difference between similar stuff.

That said, sometimes the author either makes mistakes or oversimplifies into error.

Each article varies, so some can be great, while others can completely suck. In recent years, Wiki has worked hard to raise its standards and, as cited in the above linked article, removing "too good to be true" statements without indicated sources. Wiki is seeking to get rid of the "bad," sucky articles.

[Tyrannical Tess]

Sounds to me from this article that Wikipeidia isn't the problem, it's JOURNALISTS you can't trust....but, gee, big surprise there. I've only been quoted in three newpaper articles in my life, but I was MIS-quoted all three times! So I learned early on it's not the actual truth that's of primary importance in a news story, but more how the story SOUNDS that's important - everything else is a throw-away, and apparently the stuff that sounds good isn't even worth double checking.

[Guest]

Wikipeidia isn't the problem, it's JOURNALISTS you can't trust....

Yeah.....

Lets see.... anyone can post information on Wikipeidia.... if it's wrong or disagreed with, then others can post and offer different views.... So it's kinda a growing thing.... thats cool..... (Heck... most of us here know more about the Golden Age of Pyracy than the writers of the Encyclopedia Britannica.....So who is a more trusted "expert"? (see CAPTAIN TWILL) But that's because we are more interested in the period......

If you just want a quick and easy "overview" of something, Wikipeidia is great.... and then there are the links to more information..... or you can search the internet for farther for information.....

But remember when you were a kid... hadda do a report... and just wrote down (word for word) what the encyclopedia said...? (Yeah... your teacher didn't fall for it either... )

So the "Journalist's" Bosses, should be asking some interesting guestions.....

But that isn't going to happen.... if it sells, who cares about the truth?

Hoaxes are good.... they (hopefully) keep people on their toes......

[Mission]

How is this any worse than books? Has anyone read W.R Thrower's books on Piracy or Life at Sea? The guy is a professor or doctor or something, but his books contain several undocumented statements, some of which I know are wrong. They also contain enough documentation to make you think he researched everything. And his books contain obvious stuff...what about the books that aren't obvious? All facts and drawings are tainted by the knowledge and perception/interpretation of the author. On top of all that, one author may quote another who may have gotten it wrong.

At least on Wiki there's some chance of having it corrected if it's possible. There can be more than one set of "expert" eyes observing the stated facts.

[blackjohn]

Still... ya gotta luv wikipedia... why just the other day I came across this under the article on Bear Attacks...

Claws

Bears have five digits on each dextrous paw, each digit with a long non-retractable claw; grizzly bears can have claws up to six inches long[15][16]. The shape of the claw differs between the bear species: black bear claws are strong and curved, which allows them to claw at tree bark; grizzly bear claws are long and straight, ideal for digging; polar bear claws are thick and sharp for holding the slippery skins of seals[15].

While humans have only fingernails rather than claws, they also possess powerful weaponry that can give them the ability to defend themselves. However, unless the human is carrying an unusually advanced weapon such as a machine gun or a rocket launcher, bear claws are much more deadly than rifles, small firearms, or knives. Bears use their claws for digging, scratching, killing, and defense against canid packs, other bears, humans, large felines and other animals.

What a hoot!

[hurricane]

That is misconception about all sources of authorship - book authors, journalists, broadcasters, etc. No one is without subjectivity. It is human nature to include certain information that jibes with what you know or think or believe to be true and omit others, even if they may be more factual.

That certainly is the nature of journalism. These folks are on deadline. They have editors to please. And they need to write stories that will get into the paper or on the evening news. Accuracy cannot ever be guaranteed, not can objectivity. Reporters are employed by a business that has to make money. They are employees who must satisfy the boss. They're aren't free to report what they please.

When I was a reporter I often used part of a quote and not another part. Or I created a quote out of the garbled notes I had taken. The problem is few people speak in sound bites. And a reporter doesn't take everything down verbatim. There's no time. So you do the best you can, write the story as fast as you can, and move onto the next one.

Just the nature of the beast... in short, objectivity in any form of writing is a myth because a human is involved in the process.

-- Hurricane

[Tartan Jack]

I would agree. Humans are subjective by nature. As much as people can strive for objectiveness, it is fleeting and impossible to achieve completely. The best we can do is to recognize our subjectivity and try to balance it out.

Humans ≠ objective

(Thanks Mission, I couldn't remember where that sign was on the keyboard options and lacked the time to search)

Edited May 13, 2009 by Tartan Jack

[Mission]

≠

I find our inability to be objective to be fascinating. This also means we are not completely capable of sharing facts. (I do think facts exist, but we always color them with our perception about them. Always.)

[Tartan Jack]

I think it is less the inability to see facts as much as the inability to see facts BEYOND our own perspective view of those facts. So, our POV shade the way facts are seen. Thus, end result (the way the perceived facts are put together in our heads and reason) may or may not reflect the truth of what actually happened or the way things are, OR may even be shades off the truth. Thereby, the perceived reality may be around the truth or be "off" in one way or another, YET not be accurate to the reality that caused the facts.

Clear as mud?

(I want to type more, but need to go back to work . . . )

[Graydog]

How is this any worse than books? Has anyone read W.R Thrower's books on Piracy or Life at Sea? The guy is a professor or doctor or something, but his books contain several undocumented statements, some of which I know are wrong. They also contain enough documentation to make you think he researched everything. And his books contain obvious stuff...what about the books that aren't obvious? All facts and drawings are tainted by the knowledge and perception/interpretation of the author. On top of all that, one author may quote another who may have gotten it wrong.

At least on Wiki there's some chance of having it corrected if it's possible. There can be more than one set of "expert" eyes observing the stated facts.

A fair question. This is exactly why I check to see who the author is before getting too far down the road in trusting books. When somebody holds a PhD in history there is a credentialing and background in research necessary to get that degree. When they make a non-documented inference they have some standing. When a book is written by a God knows who author with undocumented statements I tend to discount it. There are a lot of hobbyists’ books floating around that simply are junk. There are also cases where publishers have mucked with the work of the author during reprints of books. I found this out when I contacted an author about their work on pirates to get input on a picture of an "artifact" and the author told me exactly that. He had no idea where the picture had come from and the publisher (it was a few years out of print) had no institutional knowledge where the artifact had come from. In the first edition the author could quote the exact source of all artifacts illustrations, but in the second edition the editors had added stuff without his input. Of course even the vaunted PhD’s can be a problem. The well known historian the late Stephen Ambrose, PhD, was an alleged plagiarist to the level of generating substantial and continuous complaints by his peers for several years before his death.

The point becomes when you try to get away with the simple answer or quick on stop shopping you run a very good risk of not being on firm historical grounds. Be that a book or Wikipedia. Now of those two, the book is not going to be revised by anybody that happens to dislike an entry. Not the same can be said for Wikipedia. Wiki is always a work in progress with unknown author credentials and IMO should always be viewed as suspect, while at the same time it can be an excellent place to start researching an item or perhaps answering general knowledge items.

P.S. (From what I could find on line Thrower appears to be an MD and not a PhD in history. I haven't read the books mentioned. But trust your opinion on them.)

Edited May 13, 2009 by Graydog

[Mission]

Yeah, the editing thing can be a problem. I think it depends in part on how many people "experts" are regularly checking over the content of a Wiki. (Although one does wonder at the potential ramifications of the spreading of a false quote by a newly deceased French composer. (That's a cheap shot. ))

I believe Thrower was indeed a physician. I couldn't find a good reference for him on Wiki to back me up, though.

Having read several scholarly papers on surgery in the 17th and 18th C, I agree that the sources generally seem more credible. However, they also so dry and lacking in color that the practically crackle when you read them. Many of them still throw their opinions in there, although, as far as I can tell, they usually codify this with "It seems that..." or some such statement. Still, to turn that stuff into a narrative that can keep most people's attention seems to require the work of an author with some imagination, not a PhD in history. A good author can do this and still provide plenty of supporting evidence for the things he's saying. Then the question seems to me to be whether it's better to get more people reading or researching something historical - even with errors in it - or to have every statement supported by some other (presumably) correct reference and have it lie in state at some dusty library. (Personally, I like to read both if I can. However, there is a lot of medical source literature that I can't get to because it's at libraries that don't seem to have their material on-line that are over in England. That's a long way to go to get my info.)