[WikiEN-l] Story about Wikipedia response to subtle vandalism

[Keith Old]

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
professor<http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?%20id=z6xht2rj60kqmsl8tlq5ltqcshc5y93y>deliberately
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
power<http://www.gcn.com/print/25_25/41673-1.html?topic=technology_products%20wikis>of
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