[WikiEN-l] Astroturfing -- fabricating your own sources

[Luna]

Assuming your summary of events is accurate, it seems that the source isn't
neutral. That being the case, I'm of the opinion that it might be reliable
in some cases, but not in others. For example, I doubt you'd find many
objections to using a company's own information page, when looking for the
date a company was founded; for more complex or potentially controversial
information, however, getting information from third party, neutral sources
is probably preferred.

If one particular user keeps adding the source, and seems to be adamant
about it, they might a single-purpose account.  You could consider an RfC to
determine an appropriate course of action.

That all assumes, of course, that what you've said here is correct and fair.
And that's difficult to check without more info, but I think you wanted to
keep the discussion theoretical.

Knocked by the Economist? Ouch. :p

-Luna

On 12/8/06, Bogdan Giusca <liste at dapyx.com> wrote:
>
> Let's suppose we have a small country in a forgotten corner of the world.
>
> And let's assume that a local English-language website appeared out
> of nowhere, with no ads, hosted on the same server with official
> government sites (even the same IP!), has obviously the same
> designer and uses the same software with those government sites.
>
> That news source could even disagree with the government on minor
> point, in order to look independent and reliable. The only references
> in the mainstream press (e.g. The Economist) call it an "astroturfing"
> attempt of the government.
>
> Would you call this source "reliable", worthy to be used as for
> references in Wikipedia?
>
> And if there's a wikipedian who really loves this source, who agrees
> almost 100% to it and adds it to dozens of articles, reverting any
> attempt to remove it, what should we do?
>
>
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