OK. Here's the thing I think you may be missing. People are not smart. My students would not catch a link to Nihilartikle, or whatever the name is. They would not think that it's April 1st. They would not figure out the clues that you are suggesting we leave. They would miss it. They would fall for the joke.
The problem is that they'd fall for misinformation in an article too. They're not critical enough. They're not sharp enough to question everything. And this isn't because they're stupid. It's because, well, most people aren't smart enough to have well tuned bullshit detectors.
People think our articles have problems. People think Wikipedia is full of misinformation, hoaxes, and lunacy.
Even if April Fool's articles weren't malicious vandalism, quite frankly, it's not funny. It's too close to the perceived reality, and it doesn't make any strides towards parody. of the perceived reality.
-Snowspinner
On Mar 30, 2005, at 2:14 PM, Christiaan Briggs wrote:
Participating in April fools and the phenomena you describe below really couldn't be more divorced in my opinion.
Christiaan
On 30 Mar 2005, at 8:48 pm, Snowspinner wrote:
I meant the suggestion in terms of reputability. I don't think we're seen as having a neo-conservative agenda. But I think we're about as trusted by a lot of people. In fact, I know we are. Five minutes ago, sitting in my office, I heard another TA tell a student not to use Wikipedia as a source because "anyone can edit it" so it must not be reliable. She looked to me for affirmation, and I said that, actually, it's very reliable and that false information gets removed quickly. She wasn't convinced, and told the student not to use it anyway.
We can't afford to knowingly post false information. Too many people think we do it already.
-Snowspinner
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