“Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

List overview All Threads
Download

newer

older

[Wikimedia Foundation Blog]...

Re: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest,...

Tony Sidaway

17 Sep 2010 17 Sep '10

6:29 a.m.

I just heard about this from Keith Olbermann's show. Rush Limbaugh's researchers apparently grabbed a story from Wikipedia about Judge Roger Vinson and used it in one of his rants against health care. The story, describing the judge as a keen hunter and taxidermist who hung stuffed bear heads above his courthouse in order to put "the fear of God" into defendants, turned out to be false. Apparently the judge doesn't hunt that much and prefes horticulture. “I’ve never killed a bear,” he told the New York Times on Wednesday, “and I’m not Davy Crockett.” He is the president of the American Camelia Society. The source cited in the Wikipedia article was dated June 31, 2003. "Thirty days hath...June." The New York TImes also reported that the editor who added the bogus story to Wikipedia at the weekend recently removed it. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/us/16judge.html

Show replies by date

crock spot

18 Sep 18 Sep

1:01 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

Yes, it's all over the blogosphere too. The spin is all about how stupid Rush Limbaugh is to be taken in by a hoax on Wikipedia, and not the least about how a hoax could be on Wikipedia in an article about a living person, complete with a forged/fictional citation. Apparently it is a given out in the world that one should not believe a word of what is written on Wikipedia, and no longer newsworthy. Crockspot On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 2:29 AM, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Nathan

1:06 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:01 PM, crock spot <crockspot(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

crock spot

1:14 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

Can you cite a source for that Nathan? I'd like to read about that. Don't be surprised if this whole thing turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by Limbaugh himself, and bites Wikipedia in the ass. This bears a striking resemblance to something Rush has long complained about: "sourced" comments attributed to him that were on Wikipedia. Glenn Beck recently planted a small hoax on his radio show, expecting Media Matters to take the bait, and they did. I suspect Limbaugh will end up having the last laugh, and it will be at Wikipedia's expense. Crockspot

...

According to Rush Limbaugh's people, the crack Limbaugh research time (the best money can buy) discovered the pertinent information in the cited source itself, not Wikipedia. No leading conservative light, beacons of rationalism and skepticism, would draw information directly from such as source as Wikipedia and then repeat it as true with his or her own imprimatur. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

William Beutler

1:22 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

Reminds me of the situation last year where inflammatory but fake Limbaugh quotes were posted to Wikiquote<http://maaadddog.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/quotation-attributed… and became a big deal in the U.S. political blogosphere. This was around the time Limbaugh was interested in buying an NFL team, which ended up falling through. Although admittedly glib, I'll conclude with: Live by the wiki, die by the wiki... On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:14 PM, crock spot <crockspot(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Nathan

2:07 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:14 PM, crock spot <crockspot(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Can you cite a source for that Nathan? I'd like to read about that. Don't be surprised if this whole thing turns out to be a hoax perpetrated

...

Limbaugh himself, and bites Wikipedia in the ass. This bears a striking resemblance to something Rush has long complained about: "sourced"

comments

...

attributed to him that were on Wikipedia. Glenn Beck recently planted a small hoax on his radio show, expecting

Media

...

Matters to take the bait, and they did. I suspect Limbaugh will end up having the last laugh, and it will be at Wikipedia's expense. Crockspot

Sure, I can cite a source. "Kit Carson, a spokesman for Mr. Limbaugh, said a staff researcher had found the information in an article on the Pensacola newspaper’s Web site, and not on Wikipedia. But Ginny Graybiel, the paper’s managing editor, said it had never published such material."[1] ~Nathan 1: Link <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/us/16judge.html> Kevin Sack, Sept 15 2010, New York Times.

David Gerard

4:19 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On 18 September 2010 03:07, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Sure, I can cite a source. "Kit Carson, a spokesman for Mr. Limbaugh, said a staff researcher had found the information in an article on the Pensacola newspaper’s Web site, and not on Wikipedia. But Ginny Graybiel, the paper’s managing editor, said it had never published such material."[1] 1: Link <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/us/16judge.html> Kevin Sack, Sept 15 2010, New York Times.

Guess: Limbaugh's researchers got lazy and claimed they'd looked up the source. Failing to notice the date on the source was June 31. - d.

Carcharoth

4:58 a.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 2:14 AM, crock spot <crockspot(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Don't be surprised if this whole thing turns out to be a hoax perpetrated by Limbaugh himself, and bites Wikipedia in the ass. This bears a striking resemblance to something Rush has long complained about: "sourced" comments attributed to him that were on Wikipedia.

If Limbaugh or those working for him had perpetrated the hoax, they wouldn't have put "June 31" as the date. What we can learn from this is setting up edit filters (if there are enough edits like this to justify it) to catch fake dates. Such edit filters may already exist. Failing that, we can search the live text for other fake (or mis-typed as impossible) dates that are in articles at the moment. Carcharoth

Ian Woollard

1:50 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On 18/09/2010, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

...

Edit filters would be self defeating, the people doing it would see it and deliberately change the dates to a valid one.

...

Failing that, we can search the live text for other fake (or mis-typed as impossible) dates that are in articles at the moment.

That sounds like a much better idea, leaving brickbats around the place for bad guys to trip over isn't stupid at all.

...

Carcharoth

-- -Ian Woollard

WereSpielChequers

3:59 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

I've started trawling through our 117 articles which contain the term "June 31" with a view to loading it as a Botlaf search. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Botlaf/June_31 I've already found the very wonderful http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weasel_Stomping_Day And my suspicions have been aroused by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalie_von_Rauch which has been up since 2006. Plus I've fixed a typo of July 31 and removed an unsourced DOB WereSpielChequers On 18 September 2010 14:50, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 18/09/2010, Carcharoth <carcharothwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

Edit filters would be self defeating, the people doing it would see it and deliberately change the dates to a valid one.

Failing that, we can search the live text for other fake (or mis-typed as impossible) dates that are in articles at the moment.

That sounds like a much better idea, leaving brickbats around the place for bad guys to trip over isn't stupid at all.

Carcharoth

-- -Ian Woollard

Tony Sidaway

1:52 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

The fake date reminds me of the time I detected a youthful self-promoter, Portia Farmer, "American singer and actress", because she happened to put a link to her autobiographical Wikipedia article onto the "February 29" article claiming to have been born on February 29, 1989. Yes, perhaps an automated filter of some kind could be used to tag edits like this.

Ian Woollard

4:42 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On 18/09/2010, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Yes, perhaps an automated filter of some kind could be used to tag edits like this.

It should be possible to use existing bots for this using the arcane arts of 'regular expression' matching. -- -Ian Woollard

WereSpielChequers

5:06 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

I've just tracked down one anomaly to 2005, as the user hasn't edited since 2008 I've just quietly removed that particular redlinked battle from the relevant list. Good news is that April 31 has only 47 anomalies. I think this could be a big project. WereSpielChequers On 18 September 2010 17:42, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On 18/09/2010, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Yes, perhaps an automated filter of some kind could be used to tag edits like this.

It should be possible to use existing bots for this using the arcane arts of 'regular expression' matching. -- -Ian Woollard _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

David Gerard

5:35 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On 18 September 2010 18:06, WereSpielChequers <werespielchequers(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Be sure to let Rush Limbaugh's researchers know they've stirred you to fix the June 31 problem! - d.

Tony Sidaway

19 Sep 19 Sep

7:47 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

Has anybody been able to confirm that the Wikipedia article about Vinson did have either the false story or a reference to the newspaper with the bad date? I did have a look at the article history a couple of days ago but couldn't confirm it.

Nathan

7:58 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

It was there when I looked.

Ian Woollard

8 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

Well, this version, and the next has the story: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roger_Vinson&direction=prev&a… On 19/09/2010, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

-- -Ian Woollard

crock spot

8:53 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

and the diff link: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roger_Vinson&action=historysu… On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 4:00 PM, Ian Woollard <ian.woollard(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

...

Well, this version, and the next has the story: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roger_Vinson&direction=prev&a… On 19/09/2010, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)gmail.com> wrote:

-- -Ian Woollard _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Tony Sidaway

11:52 p.m.

New subject: [WikiEN-l] “Can you imagine the president of the American Camellia Society having three stuffed bears in the courthouse?”

I'm not going to say anything about who edited the article immediately prior to this story by Rush Limbaugh. I don't have to say anything because you know what I'm thinking.

4981

days inactive

4983

days old

wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org

Manage subscription

18 comments

8 participants

tags (0)

participants (8)

Carcharoth
crock spot
David Gerard
Ian Woollard
Nathan
Tony Sidaway
WereSpielChequers
William Beutler