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.
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@gmail.com wrote:
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
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On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:01 PM, crock spot crockspot@gmail.com wrote:
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
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.
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.
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Reminds me of the situation last year where inflammatory but fake Limbaugh quotes were posted to Wikiquotehttp://maaadddog.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/quotation-attributed-to-rush-limbaugh-is-a-damnable-lie/ 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@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 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.
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On Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 9:14 PM, crock spot crockspot@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
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
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.
On 18 September 2010 03:07, Nathan nawrich@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.
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 2:14 AM, crock spot crockspot@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
On 18/09/2010, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
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.
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
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@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/09/2010, Carcharoth carcharothwp@googlemail.com wrote:
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.
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
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.
On 18/09/2010, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@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.
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@gmail.com wrote:
On 18/09/2010, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@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
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On 18 September 2010 18:06, WereSpielChequers werespielchequers@gmail.com wrote:
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.
Be sure to let Rush Limbaugh's researchers know they've stirred you to fix the June 31 problem!
- d.
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.
On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 3:47 PM, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
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.
It was there when I looked.
Well, this version, and the next has the story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roger_Vinson&direction=prev&am...
On 19/09/2010, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
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.
and the diff link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roger_Vinson&action=historysub...
On Sun, Sep 19, 2010 at 4:00 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.comwrote:
Well, this version, and the next has the story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roger_Vinson&direction=prev&am...
On 19/09/2010, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
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.
-- -Ian Woollard
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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.