Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia Used For Apparent Viral Marketing Ploy
jangobongo writes "An article over at BoingBoing discusses what appears to be a viral marketing ploy appearing in a Wikipedia entry. Quote: "Someone has apparently abused collaborative reference site Wikipedia in a viral marketing campaign for a BBC online alternate reality game." "
What's so wrong with it:
It's well written, doesnt appear to violate NPOV, contains appropriate factual information that would be useful to somone researching the thing years from now.
Who can better contribute entries than the creators of things, as long as they are carefully watched over by the editors? After all these are the people who have the largest chunk of the story first hand.
Beep beep.
That'll really teach those BBC punks!
Please, Wikipedia is maintained by everyone. And not everyone is an advertiser. A few hours, maybe a few days and everything will be stable again.
A bit of sensationalist nonsense is all.
RTFA again for the best results.
on the linked boingboing-article:
Happens all the time, and has done to a greater or lesser extent since 2001.
It'll be clear in about a week, which is how long wikipedia's processes (and there are plenty of applicable processes) tend to take.
Nothing to see here...
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Yes !
Viral marketing at its very best. Well done, folks.
Online news and discussion forum 'Slashdot' has apparently been used in an almost cleverly self-referential viral marketting ploy.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Why are people overreacting?
Wikipedia is Working as Intended(tm) - someone posts a bullshit viral marketing article, and it gets edited to be a proper article about the game.
Anyone can put bullshit to Wikipedia. Anyone can edit said bullshit. Anyone repeatedly abusing their ability to post or edit will see their ability to do so removed - by their peers. Ultimate peer review system. End result is usually positive - like in this case.
It's pointless to get worked over a 'bogus' Wikipedia entry. Wait 48 hours and look at it again, and most likely the wheels have turned and it's either nuked or edited.
Not to gang up on wikipedia but as anyone else spent time doing random page jumps? I was surprised how many self-serving pages are out there, often looking like resumes for people of seemingly little fame or encyclopedic value... not to mention the suspiciously POV pages authored mainly by one author.
Seems like there's a larger problem out there that wikipedia needs to address. Certain aspects of human nature (coupled with the security of relative anonimity) are going to be tough to filter out from such an open project like theirs.
Thats all very well, but the article isn't about Wikipedia so much as the BBC. It was the Beeb that put up the fake article about a fake dead pop star.
It was also a BBC man (from their own network IP range) that put up the fake Boy*Up (?) article too. Although he says he acted alone and not on behalf of the BBC, what are the chances of a BBC man putting up an article connected to a fake BBC website coincidentally? Pretty slim.
Sure it and a few others were spotted pretty quickly, but the big story isn't the vandalism, its that the BBC did it.
Just so we're clear here, by the time the article was posted on Slashdot, it was corrected as to be a proper writeup on the game itself, instead of being a false article based on the game. You can see the original viral entry from the article's history however if you want to see what the initial fuss was about.
Looking at the page history, one finds that the original author is a certain Jon Hawk, who claims not to be a BBC employee, and with quite a few spelling mistakes too. He has also a few other contributions to Wikipedia, so maybe this page is all work of a fan and not of the BBC.
However, it is true that this page (in the history of related article Boyd*Upp) was written by someone operating out of IP 132.185.240.121, corresponding to webgw1.thls.bbc.co.uk.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
Really????
I can't believe it!
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
This is the current article, completely rewritten by a third party, which now describes the game rather than a character in it and takes care to present itself as a description of a piece of fiction, with many references to related discussions. Most people seem willing to keep the updated article, despite some lingering accusations of advertising.
There are other article(s) that are still written from the fictional context of the game, and are likely to be deleted.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
James Kenton Kane (born 22 October 1982 - 2005) better known as Jamie Kane was a British pop musician and was a member of boyband Boy*d Upp.
After the band split up, Kane launch a mildy successful solo career. He appeard on the covers of Top Of The Pops magazine and NME.
Kane was the subject of several scandals in his last year.
Kane died in a helicopter crash of the coast of the Netherlands.
External links
Official site
Fan site www.jamierules.co.uk
There are 11 types of people. Those who understand binary, those who don't and those who are sick of this lame joke.
I'm sure it's occurred to many other Slashdotters, but this is probablly the best kind of press Wikipedia can get.
This, along with the London bombing coverage in Wikinews last month, is an excellent example of the power and self-healing of MediaWiki sites.
You can rant and rave about misuse, and I agree, but this is evidence in favour when the critics talk about how a community-edited encyclopedia can never be a reliable information resource.
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
I see the larger problem with Wikipedia in that it is run by a millionaire, Jimbo Wales, who has said he manages it according to the philosophy of Ludwig von Mises. And the powers-that-be who have a hand in shaping rules, what content gets in, which users get banned, follow on some level from this.
While anyone can contribute, in a democratic fashion, there is a counter-force to this, in the same manner that the US is a democratic republic, with a counterforce of an authoritarian financial hierarchy, with landlords and tenants, moneylenders and debtors, company owners and workers. In the same manner, while anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, the "cabal" as they themselves mockingly call it, headed by Jimbo Wales, and with his various lieutenants in Arbcom (the Arbitration Committee), on the Mediation Committee, as bureaucrats, as admins, exercises a great deal of change over things, and points in the direction things will go.
There is a project on Wikipedia whose premise is that the English Wikipedia users are mostly from England and its former colonies and they have a certain view of the world. Plus demographically the users are generally people like me, white male professionals from the US and whatnot. Wikipedia says it is "neutral point of view" on topics like Palestine and Israel, the US vs. the USSR and that sort of thing, but that's BS. But anyhow the "counetring systematic bias" project mainly works on things by spending time writing articles about stuff most white male professionals from the US don't spend much time thinking about, like culture in Burundi and stuff like that.
Wikipedia does very well in it's top categories of mathematics and science, because most everyone is on the same page about these things. Wikipedia completely falls apart in terms of neutrality with things like the John Kerry and George W. Bush pages. They are not neutral. And it has not gotten better, and I am not Panglossian about the worsening situation, unlike the Wikipedia core group. It is obvious to me that the main categories that experience massive edit wars and fights like history and society, will eventually break off into different wikis. The most hardcore John Kerry people will go to one of the wikis, the most hardcore Bush people will go to another wiki. Then these groups might draw more people. This has already happened to some extent. And I tell people - don't bang your head against a brick wall. See how these things will not work out for you on Wikipedia, then go check out a wiki encyclopedia run by either a conservative (wikinfo) or by liberals (dkosopedia or Demopedia). And if all you're interested in is looking up articles on Wikipedia in quantum mechanics - well then, you'll probably be happy with Wikipedia. And I'm sure all the non-political people would love to see all the fanatic Air America listeners and Fox News watchers leave (actually that's being mild, communists and fascists are the real ends of the extremes that exist on Wikipedia).
If it's an 'online alternate reality game' what benefit would there be to the BBC, in having a viral marketing campaign? There's no advertising revenue gained from attracted a lot of new (mostly nerds) to their website.
Nothing costs nothing
I think my favorite part of the article is when someone says:
.I've marked the Boy*d Upp and Jamie Kane articles on Wikipedia for deletion. Hopefully this will teach people that Wikipedia isnt the place for viral marketing.
Since I can only imagine how many more people have seen the wikipedia page and heard about the game, after people started making a big deal about it and writing articles about it. I can only imagine what all viral advertizing firms are thinking. Damn, well I guess we can't use wikipedia to try to gain recognition for our product, because if someone notices, our pages will get slashdotted then no one will be able to view them, because too many people will be viewing our product... Oh, wait...
Despite that, I am still not sure what the big deal was in the first place. It was just good fun, and didn't really harm anyone. What is wrong with a wikipedia page about a fake artist, as far as some people are concerned (see earlier slashdot article about mmorpg) there actually is/will be no difference between reality and what is found on the internet, so in those terms the BBC is actually ahead of the game.
It's interesting to start at the original entry and then progress through the various versions. You can really see the Wiki editorial process at work.
Seriously. The article was caught, according to Wikipedia's timestamps, within 7 hours:
;-)
14:26, 12 August 2005
21:25, 12 August 2005 - "The factual accuracy of this article is disputed."
Isn't this EXACTLY how Wikipedia was designed to operate?
>Every time a new technology or a new way of doing something
>appears, someone else figures out a way to possibly abuse it and
>make a buck with it. That's how the world operates.
Usually, I'd agree with you.
But this seems to be the exception, in two ways.
The first (and less interesting) is that it wasn't actually an organized marketing ploy at all, assuming the two posters are to be believed. (It would certainly seems rather un-BBC-like if it were, and news if only for that reason.)
But, what's really interesting is that it failed. Unlike virtually every other medium out there where marketing agreements and dinner party handshaks force thinly disguised adverts on the audience, here's a case where an information delivery system proved so robust that within days it annihilated even a barely visible and seemingly harmless attempt at marketing.
In a world where television journalists hawk movies and products, newspapers add bylines to industry press-releases and ink them without so much as a word change, and public radio hosts are forced to recite advertising copy, it's incredible to find a forum which not only avoids active advertising deals but ruthlessly attacks at the first sign of marketing infiltration.
Score one for wikipedia.
Wikipedia should introduce a "change indicator" that uses background colours to indicate which parts of the text of an article have been modified (deleted) in the past ten days.
Wikipedia has bias but what human institution doesn't? At least with Wikipedia we can see it at such a large scale one could actually examine it in great detail ( dissertation perhaps ). Anyway my point is the key is not to eliminate bias ( which might be impossible ) but to recognize it. I think Wikipedia teaches us all that lesson.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
When submitting a Slashdot story, please consider linking to a specific page revision (from the History page), rather than to the normal article link. This way, Slashdotters visiting the site need not be subjected to pages full of pictures of penises. This article was only vandalised three times today, and none were terribly obscene, but it's happened in the past and reducing the impact of trollish behaviour should in turn reduce such behaviour.
This is not official Wikipedia policy, just a suggestion from a Slashdotter and a Wikipedian.
Extra Extra! Read all about it!
Actually, it seems to be more of a case of fanbase going wild. From the article:
I'm Rob, the Senior Producer on the Jamie Kane game. A couple of people have emailed the BBC asking for an official response to the Jamie Kane/Wikipedia thing. If you guys still have space for it, would you mind adding in the following, as there seems to be some confusion:
"Just to confirm, the BBC would never use Wikipedia as a marketing tool. The first posting was simply a case of a fan of the game getting into the spirit of alternative reality a little too much. The follow up posting was made by a fan of the game who happens to work for the BBC and was made without the knowledge of anyone in the Jamie Kane Team or BBC Marketing."
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
NPOV is far from the only guidelines at Wikipedia, though. There are two other issues... Self Promotion and Original Work.
/., so, good job for their PR team, now it's time for them to quit screwing around with the legitimacy of earnest sites like Wikipedia.
Now, it is true that a creator or someone involed can often be a good source of information. I write for a few entries in such a position. However, I've also authored what I thought werea few good factual entries, but rightly (it took a bit of pride swallowing to admit) removed (as original Works, not self promotion).
If you are self promoting, the entry will be wiped out. For instance, you cannot make a personal entry. Just because you as Joe_Blow include factual information, doesn't mean you are a "significant person" to be put in an encyclopedia.
Second, you may have a great theory for how the universe started or a unifying theory of all things. Unfortunately, if you are not published elsewhere first, and get some level of recognition, do not post it to Wikipedia. Instead, post it to Wikibooks or elsewhere. If you get some recognition, gain some sources that site you, then you can move it over to Wikipedia (provided you either A) present it entirely as NPOV or B) Segregate your opinion into one section, and provide another section and openly encourage others to present arguements against).
The original (and this current) seems like advertisement... still. This is info you find on the game's site, not Wikipedia. Is Wikipedia going to do an entry on games barely over a week after release now? Unless it has even some minor social impact, it should be deleted... and that's where my vote is going. Scrap it, and tell the BBC to go pay for its advertising on Google like everyone else. It got free press from
I've voting deletion.
I8-D
Gebyy zl oruvaq...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
That the same day the BBC have an article about wikipedia....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4152860.stm
Just a thought, but how do you tell the difference between "groupthink" and "a bunch of intelligent people who've independently reached the correct opinion"?
;-)
Obviously, not all opinions are equal - everyone's entitled to their own one, but "I think all black people should be rounded up and deported" should obviously be given less credence than "I think 1 + 1 = 2".
Therefore certian opinions are more "correct" than others - they more accurately reflect objective reality, or have a more rational/logical base.
If lots of intelligent people agree on a particular conclusion, it could just be because that conclusion's the right one. Or at least, the best one suggested yet.
In this example, Wikipedia is supposed to be an impartial, factual resource, or at least as close to that ideal as possible. Marketing (and especially covert marketing) has exactly the opposite agenda, by definition - it's inherently biased, since it's sole purpose is to convince you that something's great or true, regardless of its actual quality or veracity.
An objective, factual article on the reality game is still advertising it - it's still spreading awareness and propagating the meme. Given this, if/when a company is proven to have pissed in the communal well for private gain, I'd consider it appropriate to remove all content directly related to said spam, since even a factual article left behind still represents some benefit to the company.
The lesson here is simple: Submit good, factual content and it'll stay, bringing some small benefit both to Wikipedia (additional content) and your company (subtle, low-key advertising). Attempt to subvert Wikipedia by spamming or posting biased articles, and have the entire meme you're trying to push excised from the site. This way Wikipedia wins ("no content" is better than "deliberately misleading content"), and your company loses (no advertising whatsoever, even low-key factual articles).
Ok, in this case the deletion request was posted before the re-write, and the submitter turned out (apparently) to be a private individual rather than an "official" BBC employee, but I think the principle is sound - when spammed, delete the spam page complately, and subsequently accept re-writes if they're deemed impartial enough, taking into account any connection between the spammer and the new submitter.
Sorry - I know that doesn't fit in with the standard trendy "site X is t3h suXX0rZ! T3hy i5 t3h gr0uP7h1nK!!!111!!!1one!!11!1" whinge, but I'd like to think that's because it's maybe slightly closer to objective reality...
Everything in moderation, including moderation itself
Anyone can modify a Wiki, and anyone who thinks a Wiki is some perfect document free of unsavory influence is a dullard. I would be more concerned if marketing DID NOT find it's way into a Wiki. Look around you. Right above me as I type I am bombarded with logos and ads and OSDN navigation bars (or I would be if they wern't disabled or AdBlocked). Marketing is so much a part of our lives, there would be something wrong with the openness of Wikipedia if marketing did not find it's way inside.
/. for every tom, dick, and harry to read. Just mark it for deletion and move on. It appears the BBC didn't really sanction this, but, now that marketers have seen the kind of press this has gotten, they're going to be all over it now. And then it will become ineffective and they'll move on to something else. It won't ruin Wikipedia anymore than subscriptions ruined slashdot.
I hate ads as much as the next guy, but you're not going to stop this practice by broadcasting it on
But that's what's so useful about Wikipedia. I can pull up a reasonable summary of almost any random crap likely to come up in conversation and have a general knowledge of it and related subjects, as well as links to find more information.
It gives a basic coverage of subjects that you'd normally have to look in very specific types of literature for, assuming you could even figure out what category of encyclopedia you'd need.
If I need to know what an M1 is? easy, as well as other weapons of the era. What about who Lilith was? No need to know that I have to look under religious studies (or, more specifically, the apocryphal book of Enoch, in the extra-biblical Jewish mythology). Heck, as the parent demonstrated, the term bukkake, which almost no one who doesn't live on the internet has ever heard of, is quite reasonably explained.
All these terms are from diverse areas and decently obscure, but you'll find them quite easily in wikipedia alongside "All your base are belong to us," the Tree of Sephiroth, and every pokemon character ever caught.
So, I say, the more entries the better! I hope all those star wars characters are on there, because they aren't going to be anywhere else someone's likely to look for them.