G'day folks,
Government Computing News reports on a story of how an assistant professor posted incorrect information on Wikipedia to see how long it would take to get picked up. It is reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education. All the fabrications were picked up within three hours.
http://www.gcn.com/blogs/tech/42433.html
This week, *The Chronicle of Higher Education* reported on how an assistant professorhttp://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?%20id=z6xht2rj60kqmsl8tlq5ltqcshc5y93ydeliberately posted a number of errors in Wikipedia in order to see how long it would take for them to be noticed.
<snip>
"The fibs that professor Alexander Halavais slipped in were deviously subtle: that abolitionist Frederick Douglass, lived in Syracuse, N.Y. for four years, and that the Disney film *The Rescuers Down Under* won an Oscar for film editing. Both are false, but would you have doubted these "factoids"?
Halavais hypothesized that the obscure errors would "languish online for some time," the *Chronicle* reported. Instead the Wikipedia volunteers eliminated all the fabrications within three hours of being posted. And the volunteer checkers even admonished Halavais for making stuff up. We've written about both the potential powerhttp://www.gcn.com/print/25_25/41673-1.html?topic=technology_products%20wikisof and the uncertainties surrounding http://www.gcn.com/blogs/temin/41869.html group-led network projects before, but this Halavais' little experiment certainly does bode well for the form." Well done to those involved in correcting this misinformation.
Regards to all.
Keith Old
On Oct 28, 2006, at 6:26 PM, Keith Old wrote:
Well done to those involved in correcting this misinformation.
Unfortunately, the Chronicle article goes on to state that the Halavais added, as an anon, an article on communication theory within his area of expertise, and it was swiftly gutted.
Sadly, that article isn't mentioned, making it harder to identify what went wrong there. But we ought take caution, once again, about [[WP:BITE]] - the anecdote of "I corrected this information but it got changed back to wrong" or "I contributed an article on topic X that I'm a clear expert on but it got gutted" is getting too common.
-Phil
On 10/29/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly, that article isn't mentioned, making it harder to identify what went wrong there. But we ought take caution, once again, about [[WP:BITE]] - the anecdote of "I corrected this information but it got changed back to wrong" or "I contributed an article on topic X that I'm a clear expert on but it got gutted" is getting too common.
Let's think about why this is getting more common.
1. We are getting more rigid about demanding sources/citations for new material. This is necessary. I expect most academics who contribute, being used to being judged by their qualifications/reputation, will not cite and reference their work in the way Wikipedia demands. 2. We're getting more efficient at working out when these demands are not being fulfilled. This is also necessary. 3. We're getting more prominent and more people are making such attempts. This is a by-product of our success.
So let's not leap to damning ourselves here. I'm not saying that we haven't got improvements to work towards (we most certainly have), but we must not go too far the other way and pay deference towards academics for their qualifications rather than their contributions.
On 10/29/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 10/29/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Sadly, that article isn't mentioned, making it harder to identify what went wrong there. But we ought take caution, once again, about [[WP:BITE]] - the anecdote of "I corrected this information but it got changed back to wrong" or "I contributed an article on topic X that I'm a clear expert on but it got gutted" is getting too common.
Let's think about why this is getting more common.
- We are getting more rigid about demanding sources/citations for new
material. This is necessary. I expect most academics who contribute, being used to being judged by their qualifications/reputation, will not cite and reference their work in the way Wikipedia demands. 2. We're getting more efficient at working out when these demands are not being fulfilled. This is also necessary. 3. We're getting more prominent and more people are making such attempts. This is a by-product of our success.
So let's not leap to damning ourselves here. I'm not saying that we haven't got improvements to work towards (we most certainly have), but we must not go too far the other way and pay deference towards academics for their qualifications rather than their contributions.
-- Sam _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
G'day folks,
Further to the excellent points made by Sam, this anon address had already submitted wrong information on a number of topics. People would be rightly suspicious of material put forward by this IP.
In addition, the problem is often with material submitted anonymously. What we often see is material from IP x not from Professor X in which case it is harder to take it on face value without reliable sources shown.
Regards to all
Keith Old
On Oct 28, 2006, at 7:25 PM, Keith Old wrote:
Further to the excellent points made by Sam, this anon address had already submitted wrong information on a number of topics. People would be rightly suspicious of material put forward by this IP.
Not true - the previous information was, my understanding is, made under a username.
In addition, the problem is often with material submitted anonymously. What we often see is material from IP x not from Professor X in which case it is harder to take it on face value without reliable sources shown.
Yes. All the same, deletion of accurate material is unfortunate. We need to aspire to a level of sensibleness in demanding sources and especially in removing material. An article that is accurate but lacks sources is an article in need of sources, not an article in need of gutting.
-Phil
Yes, it was a username, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:AlHalawi. That user didn't create any articles, or even make any good edits, however.
On 10/28/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
On Oct 28, 2006, at 7:25 PM, Keith Old wrote:
Further to the excellent points made by Sam, this anon address had already submitted wrong information on a number of topics. People would be rightly suspicious of material put forward by this IP.
Not true - the previous information was, my understanding is, made under a username.
In addition, the problem is often with material submitted anonymously. What we often see is material from IP x not from Professor X in which case it is harder to take it on face value without reliable sources shown.
Yes. All the same, deletion of accurate material is unfortunate. We need to aspire to a level of sensibleness in demanding sources and especially in removing material. An article that is accurate but lacks sources is an article in need of sources, not an article in need of gutting.
-Phil _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 10/28/06, Phil Sandifer Snowspinner@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. All the same, deletion of accurate material is unfortunate. We need to aspire to a level of sensibleness in demanding sources and especially in removing material. An article that is accurate but lacks sources is an article in need of sources, not an article in need of gutting.
It's often easier to write an article from information, then it is to take a written article and match sources to pre-written information... The is especially true when working with dead-tree resources because searching dead-trees for facts in random orders is so slow.
We're not feeling the pain yet, but false source vandalism is bound to become a notable form of intentional vandalism which we will have a difficult time preventing unless we make some difficult changes to our sourcing policy.