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Stephen Colbert Wikipedia Prank Backfires
Vicissidude writes "The champion of 'truthiness' couldn't resist making fun of a website where facts, it seems, are endlessly malleable. But after making fun of Wikipedia on Monday night's "Colbert Report," Colbert learned some hard truths about Wikipedia's strength in resisting vandalism. Here's how the segment started: 'Colbert logs on to the Wikipedia article about his show to find out whether he usually refers to Oregon as "California's Canada or Washington's Mexico." Upon learning that he has referred to Oregon as both, he demonstrates how easy it is to disregard both references and put in a completely new one (Oregon is Idaho's Portugal), declaring it "the opinion I've always held, you can look it up."' Colbert then called on users to go to the site and falsify the entry on elephants. But Wikipedia's volunteer administrators were among those watching Colbert, and they responded swiftly to correct the entry, block further mischievous editing, and ban user StephenColbert from the website."
The Colbert report is always hilarious, and this is no exception.
Who in their right mind would use Wiki as a 'source' document?
It is a great tool and it works as a starting point. You still have to verify data.
Then again, there are people that still try to go whale watching in Lake Michigan.
After all, if administrators don't block users, than the vandals win, and that's just not patriotic at all...
~ C.
plan on voting for the Stewart/Colbert ticket in '08 !
I thought the goal was to be funny. Considering it was hilarious, I think it worked out perfectly.
Somebody better head over to Wikipedia and proofread the entries for 'irony' and 'satire'.
I went to the elephant listing on wiki that night. Apparently the population of elephants has tripled in the last three months. That is quite impressive, as each female elephant gives birth to one child at a time (twins and beyond are very rare) and there is a 22 month pregnancy period.
All it did was demonstrate that Wikipedia is capable of defending itself from obvious vandalism. It does nothing to further the argument that Wikipedia is anything more than a big bag of trivia, edited by people who argue endlessly about whether captain Kirk wore a yellow or marigold shirt.
...not the ones that are obvious vandalism.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Then again, there are people that still try to go whale watching in Lake Michigan.
Considering how many whales I've seen on that little beach across from the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago I can see why.
I saw the episode in question, and it seems to me that there's no why he could actually have edited it *on the air* like that, not with the theatrical keyboard-punching he did on the show while talking at the camera.
This strikes me as a total non-story, or worse, an invented story either to defame the Colbert Report show (possible) or a promotional stunt on behalf of the show.
(Further, anyone who thinks that Stephen Colbert, on the show, urging people to change Wikipedia actually MEANS he wants those people to do that betrays an utter ignorance of what the Colbert Report is: a dead-on satire of the right-wing talk show arena. No one should ever take anything the character of Stephen Colbert says seriously.)
If that's a joke backfiring, what's success? Having America celebrate it's 750th birthday?
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
On the contrary, it proved exactly what Colbert's point was. Wikipedia's very nature makes it prone to misttatements and error. Wikipedia practically had to shut itself down after Colbert proved his point.
Seems like the submitter couldn't see the beauty of the satire. Just like Dave Barry's "Dog Ate My Toes" poetry project, it gave us all a good laugh, which is the entire point of humor and satire.
Backfired? No way. We all got a great laugh from this.
JoAnn
You can see this process most clearly, in the evolution of society's treatment of homosexuals over the past 50 years.
Funny how academia is now going through this process with Wikipedia.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
This shows nothing about Wikipedia's strength in resisting vandalism. It is like calling the cops and saying "i'm going to rob a bank now", "look i'm in the bank on Maple and Main stealing money", "Oh now i'm leaving, I'm headed home to 123 Main St."
and you need to repeatedly sample an article in order to determine it's average and standard deviation-- slowly converging on the truth.
Maybe wikipedia should include that information in addtion to the the "This article is contested" warning.
Frankly, wikipedia has a lot of information that you just can't get anwhere else and I will always treasure it for that. But trusting wikipedia for current information-- or opinion, is very dangerous.
Backfired? Quite the opposite. This proves his point. If it's left open you can end up with any facts people choose to insert. The other option is to limit edit rights, which goes against the basic idea behind the site.
I'm sure he didn't go to bed crying because he's been blocked from editing wikipedia.
Developers: We can use your help.
It's extra funny as people are now salting more slyly references to Colbert, elephants, and truthiness in scores of articles, I saw tons being cleaned. But just as many are likely getting through based on simple probability and volume. They'll be cleaning Stephen off of WP for months.
Taking what Colbert did as some deliberate act to sabotage Wikipedia is about as ridiculous as the Bush administration inviting him to the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner and expecting him to shower the President with praise. Colbert was trying to make the point that the majority opinion isn't necessarily the right opinion. One of the tenets of our government is to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. So, when you hear politicians crying for straight up-and-down votes when our republican (little 'r') government empowers the minority party to fight against it (via the filibuster), you should remember that we don't live in a democracy. That whole skit was also a clever take on how those in power love to rewrite history to put themselves in a better light.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I think Colbert's point was that Wikipedia and other vote based knowledge bases ultimately conform to the beliefs of the majority, and not actual fact. The truth isn't democratic in nature (although truthiness might be). If a bunch of skinheads get together and vote that the Holocaust never happened, that doesn't make it true. Just because a moderator was watching and locked down the entry isn't a display of Wikipedia's power. The moderator can't handle everything in that fashion. If the power of Wikipedia is in the breadth and good will of it's contributors, then unlock the entry and let's see what happens.
But did anybody check for vandalism of pages about bears?
Take a look at Colbert's block log: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special: Log&type=block&page=User:Stephencolbert and his talk page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Stephencolb ert. He's not banned, and although he was blocked at one point, that's since been removed.
Furthermore, all the blocks put on his account were due to the inability to confirm that this account actually belonged to Stephen Colbert since creating an account with a public figure's name if you are not the public figure is against wikipedia policy. His account was not blocked for vandalism.
Dear diary: Today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender.
Only kidding, honey - it was the other women on the beach, honest!
"Look at how our system actually works: by protecting two whole articles from vandalism, because they were mentioned a nationally televised show. Ergo we are STILL the sum total of human knowledge, and bigger than the Apollo Program and Jesus."
Wikipedia is the greatest collection of random-third-party factoids the world has ever known, and a great resource, but hardly some grand visionary society of mind. I think Colbert proved his point quite nicely.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
There's only one way to fight vandalism, and it's the good old-fashioned way ... get some troops on the ground. I spent two nights ago protecting over a dozen elephant-related articles (Elephant the album, Dumbo the Elephant, Elephant Seal, etc.) and blocked a few dozen people I caught inserting false numbers about elephant populations. As Wikipedia administrators we really have all the tools that we could possibly need. I just looked at the live stream of all edits on the English Wikipedia and reviewed the ones being made to all pages related to Stephen Colbert, Elephants, or northwestern states.
(User:Cyde on en-wiki)
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
In many of the more relaxed areas of the world, Wikipedia has already supplanted the local libray as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal -or at least wildly inaccurate- it scores over the older more pedestrian collection in two important respects. First, it is doesn't charge late-fees; and second, it allows lazy people to do research without having to get their fat-asses outside. (With apologies to DNA...)
I'm sure it would be quite funny if Colbert hated Microsoft and submitted something to slashdot about one of Vista's new features. "Watch! I'll make it a bad thing in 5 seconds."
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
i was listening to npr today (yes yes, i'm a nerd).
there were callers that made many good points, including these two gems:
- no one would write a credible paper with just one source. if you use wikipedia, back it up with other sources. any source can be wrong, even ones bound and published, just like wiki ones.
- think critically while reading wikipedia. think critically while reading newspaper, the internet, etc etc. don't just dump anything straight into memory, assuming it to be fact.
Wikipedia had to limit editing to pages that got vandalized. That doesn't mean any of this "truth by mob" will actually stay in... Wikipedia requires information to be cited by reliable sources, so there's no way that the statements will stick for longer than a few minutes.
Agreed that this is probably not the best way to go about things.
It would be much better for the articles to be changed in a background copy, and then upon some sort of verification, or validation of data, it gets switched to main. It would certainly stop the see-sawing of article submission reliably between fsckers and wiki admins.
That said, if we are going to build a collection of the entire of human knowledge, we are going to have a few rough edges on the data. It's an almost insurmountable task to verify each piece of data entered into wikipedia. Some data can not be verified because of current views, or differing conclusions based on research. If were to ask 30 people to go and count all elephants, I would see 30 different method of counting elephants. Some would use statistical methods to build a "pretty close count" while others would get more accurate results.
There is also the problem of verifying unquantifiable data. How many Ants are there in the world?
There are some things that are impossible. People will have to put up with the fact the the information on community based sites are going to be fuzzy at best. Wikipedia will always be in some sort of "truth flux" where the information you see may, or may not contain some truth. The point is, Wikipedia is a great starting point to get information, but linking to a wiki article in a paper as fact will get you laughed off.
I applaud the notion of a centralised source of human knowledge, even if that comes with it's own drawbacks.
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
In Colbert's "bit", the truth wasn't in what was said or in the "call to arms" to edit the wiki, but in what he didn't come out and say. You can't challenge a "fact" that has no backing. Without sources, Wikipedia is no more than people playing professor. Even volunteer editors don't know what the hell is truth without some sort of backing. As a substitute, kids would ask me about Wikipedia and if articles would be acceptable in their bibliography. My answer was always no. If they found info on Wikipedia I expected they have something else to back it up. Colbert's stunt proves that this is the fundamental flaw in thinking of the Wikipedia as a source for anything more than opinion. BTW, I checked out the Wiki right after the show... did you know that the population of elephants has tripled in the last six months?! Incredible! -EW
"Finish your dinner." -Your Mom
It's those subtle edits that distort what the meaning of the truth is that not only hurts Wikipedia but the media in general. I mean how often is a war refered to as a crisis? How badly has the reporting of science been over the last 5 years? I can list more but I think we all know what topics those are and it would just draw unneeded debate.
When the truth is warped and sensationalized it hurts the overall perception of facts which destroys the public trust of fact. It reminds me so much of "corporate terminology" you know the language - give bad news using positive terms so no one realizes you're giving bad news.
Anyways, as much as I love Wikipedia as a reference. It's that haggling over the subtle wording that drives me bonkers when I'm fact checking. Reading what some of those people argue over is unreal. But I have to do it because I never really know what I'm reading until I investigate. I keep thinking that some articles shouldn't be "public" or finalized until they manage to iron them out properly and remove things like POV, opinion and vaguerities. It's still rough but I think the article shows that they are making an effort to be responsive to these problems.
Oops, how did this get here?
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Thanks! I thought that sounded familiar. :-)
"In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitch Hiker's Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover."
-Uberhund
Casual users should be able to switch between the two easily and decide whether they wanted potentially less trustworthy, but more current, information, or the vice versa.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Wikipedia is a bit larger than that, and is quite a bit hardier than you imagine.
To all potential Wiki vandals... the ceiling cat is watching.
What "strength in resisting vandalism"? Some editors were watching the show on TV, so they were able to revert the changes. What about the myriad other instances where vandalism is not announced and showcased on TV worldwide?
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Agreed. Its a starting point for me for looking quick technical things. e.g. DVI pin layouts or lookup SHA or MD5 hash. When it comes to areas where one's opinion/politics/theology can be inserted I take Wikipedia more with a grain of salt.
Sam Vaknin had an interesting article The Six Sins of the Wikipedia pointing out the problems with the Wikipedia system. I enjoy using Wikipedia but I am wary of using it has some sort of gospel or authority. The contributers are anonymous and that lack of transparency does make it sort of a problem for me. Below the article.
Sam Vaknin July 2, 2006
It is a question of time before the Wikipedia self-destructs and implodes. It poses such low barriers to entry (anyone can edit any number of its articles) that it is already attracting masses of teenagers as "contributors" and "editors", not to mention the less savory flotsam and jetsam of cyber-life. People who are regularly excluded or at least moderated in every other Internet community are welcomed, no questions asked, by this wannabe self-styled "encyclopedia"
Six cardinal (and, in the long-term, deadly) sins plague this online venture. What unites and underlies all its deficiencies is simple: Wikipedia dissembles about what it is and how it operates. It is a self-righteous confabulation and its success in deceiving the many attests not only to the gullibility of the vast majority of Netizens but to the PR savvy of its sleek and slick operators.
1. The Wikipedia is opaque and encourages recklessness
The overwhelming majority of contributors to and editors of the Wikipedia remain anonymous throughout the process. Anyone can register and members' screen-names (handles) mean nothing and lead nowhere. Thus, no one is forced to take responsibility for what he or she adds to the "encyclopedia" or subtracts from it. This amounts to an impenetrable smokescreen: identities can rarely be established and evading the legal consequences of one's actions or omissions is easy.
Everything in the Wikipedia can be and frequently is edited, re-written and erased and this includes the talk pages and even, to my utter amazement, the history pages! In other words, one cannot gain an impartial view of the editorial process by sifting through the talk and history pages of articles (most of which are typically monopolized by fiercely territorial "editors"). History, not unlike in certain authoritarian regimes, is being constantly re-jigged on the Wikipedia!
2. The Wikipedia is anarchic, not democratic
The Wikipedia is not an experiment in online democracy, but a form of pernicious anarchy. It espouses two misconceptions: (a) That chaos can and does lead to the generation of artifacts with lasting value and (b) That knowledge is an emergent, mass phenomenon. But The Wikipedia is not conducive to the unfettered exchange of information and opinion that is a prerequisite to both (a) and (b). It is a war zone where many fear to tread. the Wikipedia is a negative filter (see the next point).
3. The Might is Right Editorial Principle
Lacking quality control by design, the Wikipedia rewards quantity. The more one posts and interacts with others, the higher one's status, both informal and official. In the Wikipedia planet, authority is a function of the number of edits, no matter how frivolous. The more aggressive (even violent) a member is; the more prone to flame, bully, and harass; the more inclined to form coalitions with like-minded trolls; the less of a life he or she has outside the Wikipedia, the more they are likely to end up being administrators.
The result is erratic editing. Many entries are completely re-written (not to say vandalized) with the arrival of new kids on the Wikipedia block. Contrary to advertently-fostered impressions, the Wikipedia is not a cumulative process. Its text goes through dizzyingly rapid and oft-repeated cycles of destruction
After all, Oregon is just Hawaii's Europe...
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
They've foiled Stephen Colbert's future nefarious plots by banning his account. If only there was something he could do like create a new account.
Apparently the population of elephants has tripled in the last three months. That is quite impressive, as each female elephant gives birth to one child at a time (twins and beyond are very rare) and there is a 22 month pregnancy period.
I believe I read that same article. I learned that unique among mammals. elephants' legs are actually hollow, affording the opportunity for small creatures, such as mice, to hide inside without detection.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Other than referring to O'Reilly as "Papa Bear," being loud and obnoxious, and covering his set in American flags, the show is not at all a straight spoof of O'Reilly. A simple spoof of the Factor would give you about 5 minutes of material, but Colbert mocks pretty much the entire media establishment, especially the "opinion" media (which some would argue constitutes all media these days). He also dabbles in some straight Daily Show-style political satire.
I don't know how you could have possibly watched more than one or two episodes of the Colbert Report and still refer to it as nothing but an O'Reilly ripoff. Or maybe you're just repeating what O'Reilly himself says about the show, without having actually watched it yourself.
If you care to have accurate information this statement is true of all sources.
My problem with Wiki is not that you have to verify the source. You correctly point out that one has to do that of all sources.
My problem is that anonymous editing (in which I include editing by people with usernames, as they are effectively anonymous) means that you can never know the adgendas or biases of those who are publishing the facts. Some pages are obviously biased, and called out for being so. What I worry about are the specialist pages, where only a specialist could recognize an error or spot a bias.
I would like to see Wiki adopt an "edition" system, where an expert -- whose identity and credentials are verified by Wiki -- "signs" certain articles, to acknowledge that the facts are correct as s/he views them. In keeping with Wiki's philosopy, there is no reason why multiple signed "editions" of articles could exist, signed by different experts.
Under such a system, you would know who takes responsibility for the facts as they are presented, and you would know their motivations, conflicts of interest, and backgroud.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
If you use a Wikipedia article for information, you should validate that information. Just as you should take reasonable measures to confirm a fact from a book. One way to start with Wikipedia might be to look at the history of changes. You might see evolution of the disputed information.
Sometimes you can read two newspapers with different points of view on a subject and start to see the 'real picture'. The more sources hear about an event from, the more effective your intelligence can be at filtering out noise. The human mind decides on a stopping point where it is safe to assume something is true to a degree of certainty. This is what makes us fairly sure that when we walk, we will not fall through the ground during some subsequent step.
Looking at the history might give insight into how the entry took shape. We will have a larger pool of beliefs from which to harvest the most accurate picture. It's work, but that's what research is.
This raises a number of questions in my mind.
Do the wiki admins make a point of collectively watching all television shows to make sure no one is vandalising their site?
What if someone were to announce their wiki vandalism on, say, local radio -- that is, to an audience of only 80,000 as opposed to 8 million -- would they still be caught?
If Steve alters a part of a wiki entry regarding remarks he himself has made about Oregon, would he not then be making a remark about Oregon, thus making whatever new content he entered technically correct?
If Steve had not publicly announced his vandalism regarding whether or not he had compared Oregon to Portugal, would anyone besides Barry Lopez have cared?
Accuracy is proportional to the number and variety of sources used. You just need to decide how critical accuracy is to you and do the work necessary to assure that level. So, if you're posting on say Slashdot, accuracy is... okay totally irrelevant. But if it was for a published article, you might not want to source Wikipedia (though for many subject areas it's pretty damn accurate). For a doctoral thesis, I think you'll fail, if not be burned at the stake for siteing wikipedia unless it's a thesis about wikis :)
Wikipedia provides a reasonable level of accuracy on most subjects for a very little amount of effort. Plus, well written Wikipedia articles also provide sourcing to help confirm the accuracy of the information.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Who in their right mind would use Wiki as a 'source' document?
Short answer: Too many people.
I've read through tons college level papers that cite wikipedia as a source for factual information. That is scary.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
With Bush and Gore absent from the ticket, that's absolutely true.
The special bonus would be the most hilarious Vice-Presidential debate ever.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
What you are describing is the stable versions proposal. We're trying to go ahead with this but we're meeting strong resistance, even by fellow administrators. They say it's too "unwiki" and that it will no longer be "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". I actually tried setting Elephant to a stable version last night, but was reverted by another administrator.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
Yeah. I was pretty bummed when it occurred to me during my under graduate years that all of my "research" essentially amounted to consolidating and regurgitating other peoples research. (And, in some cases, THEIR consolidation and regurgitation.)
I never really proved anything.
------------
Clever trolls are master baiters of the worst kind.
What you are describing is the stable versions proposal, and it's currently being worked on by the developers. Basically, an administrator would be able to go in and flag a specific revision as being "stable", and that's what all readers of the article would see. You could of course choose to see the development version or make edits to the development version, but it will take an administrator to update the stable version, and he will do so by comparing the changes since the last stable version and making sure everything is legitimate.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
One Trick pony
Maybe, but its one hell of a funny pony. I mean have you seen the interview with Eleanor Homes Norton?
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
On the contrary, it proved exactly what Colbert's point was. Wikipedia's very nature makes it prone to misttatements and error. Wikipedia practically had to shut itself down after Colbert proved his point.
Wikipedia isn't really the target here. I'll bet the majority of "Report" viewers didn't even know what Wikipedia was before Colbert explained it. The target of the satire is the echo chamber of widespread opinion that becomes "fact" when repeated enough. Wikipedia is merely being used as a foil to illustrate this point. Right wing radio is famous for this kind of thing where there's little to no fact checking and mostly relying on what other people say. For instance, it's now a "fact" that Al Gore said he "invented the internet", even though the actual statement he made had nothing to do with inventing and more to do with funding.
AccountKiller
Unknown SlashMeme Error on line -1, you insensitive clod.
You're forgetting where you are. This is Slashdot.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
Colbert didn't vandalize anything. He made a joke about editing entries in the wikipedia to satirize pundits in the press who treat the truth as some maleable thing that should be bent to fit their zany world-view.
This completely fits in with the "character" he plays on ths show, and even fit with some of the points about the repetition of the WMD "facts" that was made later in the interview segment.
You want to be ticked at someone, be ticked at the douchebags who took his joke seriously and actually went and vandalized the pages.
Somebody is living in Wikiality.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
My problem is that anonymous editing (in which I include editing by people with usernames, as they are effectively anonymous) means that you can never know the adgendas or biases of those who are publishing the facts.
Actually those using a username would be pseudonymous, and it's an important distinction. The reason it's important is that a given user can establish credibility. That is, you can look at other things they've posted and find patterns behind the changes they make, etc. You can see if they generally add credible information, or distory something.
I tend to trust Wikipedia in relation to the controversey of the topic (and to their credit they mark controversial items as being such). So if it's an article about gravity, as opposed to say the Republican party, I can reasonably assume that the gravity article is accurate where as the one on the GOP may be distorted by either side.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Waitaminute!!!! What? Lake Erie, 62 feet? Come on dude! What are you smoking? People have drowned in Lake Erie when there have been boat accidents and storms. You can't have that happen in only 62 feet of water. You need something like a million feet of water before that kind of thing is possible. Lake Erie is at least a million feet deep somewhere in the center.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
As someone who's currently reading through hundreds of obscure scientific journals while writing a paper, the idea that 'Wikipedia suffers from systematic and calculated errors' makes me chortle.
Knowledge and scientific technique are expanding so rapidly that even those scientists whom the media so often lauds as being 'at the forefront' of whatever field they specialize in can't keep up.
I keep coming across articles which blatantly misuse the chemical analysis process I'm publishing on, and I mean REALLY misuse it to the point that their information is total garbage.
The process Wikipedia represents isn't new...dissemination of knowledge has always been hampered by lies, misinformation, and happy fools. Thankfully, the same knowledge is tempered with time.
That's the down-side to living in these, our modern times. All the good basic stuff is already well-known. You have to spend an eternity climbing up onto the shoulders of those who came before you until you can grasp some tiny nugget of original research. Stupid Newton, ruining it for the rest of us. :mad:
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
The point of the whole story was 2 things:
= colbert%20wiki for the sketch in question.
1) Point of a slight flaw in wikipedia.
2) Relate this flaw to a point about the Bush administration convincing americans, via half truths and out right lies, that Irag has WMD. He pointed out 2 different surveys on what americans think and it showed a significant rise (currently 50%) in the number of people that think Iraq has WMDs.
The point ( a satirical one ) was that you can make the "truth" want you want if enough people believe it, or edit a document.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFT4OfdnVpU&search
Under various accounts, using various proxies, etc. I got bored one weekend and hacked up a little script to assist me, and monitor "progress". 58 have been corrected.
First, check for and avoid the regularly-updated-and-reverted articles - there are enough OCD types already fighting for who can most aggressively adjust the content to their worldview, making them pretty crap anyway (unless they've been locked down, in which case other biases come in..). Hell, the script even collects data on who reverts the articles I've adjusted, so I can build up a list of wikipaedophiles whose pet articles (identified by recent edits) can be left alone.
For the articles where "no-one really cares", we operate most effectively. At its most basic, we can automagically change a number here and there, remove or reorder events by simple substitution of prepositions (s/before/after/ is surprisingly effective!), etc. God knows it's only a metter of time before I try applying some of the analysis tools I used when fumbling about with interlingua (RIP) a few years ago.
Much better to spin some inventive prose, then add a non-existent reference to an old tome that likely no-one has read. Build up a stub. Wiki loves to quote figures such as "number of articles" (quantity over quality, yay!), promoting the best as if they in any way represented the state of the rest, so I'm doing my little bit.
Incidentally, I wonder if similar practices occur in the field of Open Source contributions? In that case, it couldn't be a matter of contributing simple code that *doesn't work*, but volunteering sufficiently complex and functional enhancements that nevertheless include some subtle vulnerability, which following contribution and deployment provides the cracker with a waiting herd of machines to compromise.
The way you are framing the problem makes it a futile effort. You cannot say "if only everybody would do this, then..." because you will never get everybody to do one thing or act in one way. In the real world solutions involve creating systems that encourage certain behavior. Capitalism "works" because it encourages the creation of wealth. Communism didn't work out because it expected people to behave a certain way, it didn't encourage behavior.
If you look at wikipedia in this way, it is just a new type of system made possible because of new technologies. Wikipedia encourages people to contribute, and it is being refined as a system to handle uses and abuses that don't contribute to its goal. If the goal is to be an encyclopedia of human knowledge, I believe it stands a far better chance then any encyclopedia or company in history. Wikipedia is just a very efficient way of collaborating on information, with few limits. It is more like the first time the abstract class of information sharing has been instantiated, even tho its children classes have been objects for a long time. Look at a dictionary, communication is a lot more flexible than the words in a dictionary but it is still an attempt to collaborate on meaning. Look at peer-reviewed journals, its just a few people collaborating and we all trust them (for the most part) because they are experts. Look at published books, its one or a few peoples expression of knowledge.
For so long we have trusted these children objects because we believe in experts and we believe in authority. The dissemination of knowledge has always been from the top down, from authority to the masses, from experts to the laymen. The internet has gone and thrown a nice big wrench in this historical system. All of the sudden nobody is an expert, all of the sudden information can come from anywhere. All of the sudden we don't have this magical authority anymore to tell us what is right and wrong, and for many people that is unimaginable.
I firmly believe that the internet will do away with peer-reviewed academic journals, and all other sorts of authority. It may be a while off, and many people may call me crazy, but I see it. Instant communication using wiki like technologies will allow the efficient review and commenting of any academic work. I envision a system that has been worked out over time, perhaps derived from wikipedia or even slashcode that allows people to weigh in on the merits and flaws of a work. History of revision, immediate feedback and efficient communication will all supercede the percieved authority that money can buy.
Perhaps today you cannot cite wikipedia in an academic setting, but do not laugh at the thought that one day wikipedia, google scholar, slashdot, and all of the similar endevours in their vein will bring about a complete shift in what information is trusted. Bloggers were supposed to do this with news, and I argue that they have only begun. I predict in the next 5 years the media landscape will be completely unrecognizable from the one we have today, and further more todays media landscape will be laughed at for the inefficient joke that it is.
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
I would say he proved his point, and in a very dramatic fashion. Wikipedia cannot be trusted as a source. Remember back a bit when our illustrious politicians were playing games on Wikipedia?
But Wikipedia itself has million sources (contributors)!
factor 966971: 966971
Here is the torrent for the show's video.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
Lake Erie is by far the wimpiest of the great lakes!
I disagree. Lake Erie is the only one of the great lakes to be combustible.
Ehh undergrad papers are largely a joke anyway. The only person reading them is the person grading them, so the only person they're hurting is themselves.
Wikipedia is a bad resource for a number of reasons, the least of which being its somewhat dubious provenance: it is never a primary source, at best a secondary source, and most often a tertiary source, neither of which are incredibly accurate or paint a very good picture of ths subject.
Wikipedia can be a good resource for beginning your research, however. If the article is any good, it will document its sources, which you can then look up and use yourself. The source material usually has more information than is posted on Wikipedia, which might also be useful to your topic.
This is kind of like his word "truthiness". I, for one, like the word "wikiality" as a way to describe that concept and I think I'll start using it!
Yet the article on Lutheranism is still shorter than the article on Truthiness. The Lutheran movement had a much larger impact on world history than the word 'truthiness'. That was Colbert's overall point; Wikipedia does not represent reality but a subset of reality which he coined Wikiality.
Wikipedia represents the state of human knowledge at some point in time which is vastly different than the Truth. In 50 years an article about Truthiness might be just one line while the article about Lutheranism will still be the same length, if not longer. Wikipedia only has the "truth of the moment" while the Truth is something timeless.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
There is no way in hades that Colbert thinks this comedic-stunt backfired. He nailed front-page-top-story press in a large number of press sources that target his key demographic. Plus, this was absolutely hilarious (at least to me and most in the kingdom on geekdom). PS: Colbert loves Dungeons and Dragons; the man can do no wrong in my eyes!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
How so? I think Colbert proved the point he wanted to make quite nicely. The fact that many entries contained the false statistics for at least some portion of time shows the inherent flaws with the wiki system. (Sure, it was only a short period of time - but imagine you're writing a paper on elephants.. and just happen to come upon the entry at that point in time.)
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Whatever has caused you to have an irrational phobia of this project, I'm sick of hearing you all bitch about it. I don't care if you lost an edit war. I don't care if someone thought your prayer group wasn't notable enough for an entry. And I certainly don't care that wikipedia doesn't agree with your favourite news channel/conspiracy nut.
Its a good project that does what it sets out to do, and does it well. The fact its resisted what is effectively a DDoS attack from a major celebrity with millions of "zombies" at his disposal should testify to that.
No, it isn't perfectly accurate. But if people were to fact check the news as anally as wikipedia is checked, they would find it much, much worse. People find one or two inaccurate articles and hold them up as examples of why wikipedia "doesn't work" whilst failing to mention the thousands of articles that are accurate.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I love how the right wing pundits get upset about what comedians do and say.
They go on and on about Air America Radio -- a comedy news show financed by comedian and producer Al Franken.
Then they look at The Daily Show and Colbert Report as though these are genuine news outlets, when they are in
fact comedy programs. I think the whole thing is hilarious.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Unfortunately, current plans for a stable versus unstable Wikipedia branch don't appear to address the flaws with the philosophy behind Wikipedia, one of which is the lack of qualified scholars. A Wikipedia administrator is not, by virtue of being an administrator, anymore qualified to dub an article 'stable' than a normal user of Wikipedia.
If Wikipedia is going to go through the trouble of creating a stable branch, Wikipedia ought to consider soliciting scholars and other qualified individuals to scrutinize articles for factual content rather than mere conjecture or personal opinion. In most colleges and universities Wikipedia is not considered a suitable source for research, even as a jumping off point, because its information cannot be verified.
There's an argument for some sort of flagging system in wikipedia that would differentiate between fact, fiction, speculation, opinion, etc. For instance, look up something like "Jedi".
First, there's no disambiguation - since JEDI is also an acronym for the Joint Expeditionary Digital Information system and for the Joint Enterprise DoDIIS Infrastructure you would think that there's be mention of something besides the fiction. According to Wikipedia, the only Jedi is the fake one.
Second, sometime after the first reference to fictional characters, the article goes into full authoritative mode with passages like "The Force is an incorporeal energy field that is generated by all living organisms and permeates the universe and all things within." If you skimmed over that whole fictional reference, you're in trouble. That section ends with "This life-force is known in China as qi or chi; in India, prana and in Japan as Ki. A belief in a life-force is most commonly seen in the East, practised by Buddhists, Taoists, Confucianists, and Hindus." Terrific. A billion or so people just got told that their beliefs are equated with George Lucas' fantasies.
This is also part of a larger problem with the inability of a (larger than you'd hope) portion of the general public to distinguish between fact and fiction. I teach science. For nearly a school year, back in 1986, nearly every lesson on biology that mentioned the brain brought up a question about this brain transplant that they saw on TV and it was so cool - how did they do that? This all came from one fictional made-for-tv movie about a brain transplant called "Who Is Julia?" I got more questions about that than I did about the real events that same year at Chernobyl.
Third, as a reflection of our culture, it's way out of whack with what we hold important.
The Jedi entry prints out at 17 pages.
Stephen Hawking's is 6.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
The problem with Wikipedia is the it only works in practice, not in theory.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Sadly his satire, and that of the daily show, is spot on and correct, while pappa bear's message is completely wrong. They spoof everyone and everything. They actually hit CNN hard every chance they get, but your two deluded to notice. I bet they pound on CNN directly once a week for a screw up they make.
Everytime the Daily Show displays an indecision2006, the brink of the brink of war, a mess-o-potamia, etc they are making funny of news reporting, big business, talking points, and the polical administration.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
But it's not hard to establish credibility by performing meaningful edits and additions, if only for the purpose of then using that credibility to do malicious things. It also makes the credible users targets for hackers, who could hijack the account and then do those malicious things. At most web forums and whatnot I frequent, I've established credibility as a reliable source of information, so if I were feeling like an asshole some day and decided to have a little fun with the method that someone could use to safely discharge a monitor's capacitors, I could easily put someone in the hospital, if not a coffin. I'm not the type to do that, but anyone can have a bad day.
Of course for the most part, that all goes to hell with Wikis. The vast majority of the users aren't checking who the last person to edit the page was, and certainly aren't going to be following the editing trends of those people. On forums, each of my posts has my postcount next to it, and an indication of whether I've been banned. That information may be accessable in Wikis, I don't know, but it's not at the very top of each page to keep unsuspecting users on their toes. Certainly, it's stupid to assume anything on Wiki is true; likewise, it's also easy to make an educated guess as to the likelihood of a page being vandalized (as you said, gravity versus politics). Wikis have the advantage of (on well-constructed pages, which is what "the" Wiki expects) citing their sources, which although they tend to be websites as well (which can just as easily be biased or wrong), it can still give users an impression of how accurate things are. It's usually obvious when there's subjective writing in place, pages containing so-called "weasel words" often get flagged as such, but it may not stick out as blatantly biased or wrong if subtle "facts" are added into otherwise-accurate pages.
User and pseudonym tracking is great for the editors of Wikis, but they're largely pointless for your everyday users who just want to grab the odd fact. What's great is how strong the community is - well over half of the pages I've viewed on Wikipedia have some sort of warning flag on them, whether it marks a stub, inaccuracy, lack of citations, use of 'weasel words', future information, whatever. Does it mean the information is accurate? Absolutely not. But it means that the community is actively checking things, and that bizarre inaccuracies and the like are often taken care of quickly, if only marked as such and not corrected outright.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
You poor, misguided, soul! You are sadly misguided if you think the "theory" of gravity is uncontroversial.
Miller was a leftist, right up until 9/11. Immediately afterwards he was a champion of the right.
To put it plainly, the terrorists scared him into becoming a conservative. Therefore, he's a coward and has no credibility in my eyes whatsoever. Watching that video of him learning how to play golf is one of the saddest and lamest things I've ever seen.
If you're going to be a conservative, then be one based upon the merits of the platform. Don't just jump on board because something spooked you.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I used to, but then they went and redid all the districts (I'm in Texas).
I do know both of my senators though (Coryn and Hutchison).
Colbert's whole point was to mock they idea implicit in Wikipedia that all people are equally valid sources of authority, and that in disputes over facts the truth should be determined by which side has the most people.
By limiting the editing of the page to a small group of 'trusted editors' on the articles invovled, aren't the Wikipedia admins essentially conceding he's correct?
How is that backfiring? Yes, you can protect certain Wikipedia pages from vandalism -- at least temporarily -- by blocking modifications to them. And only people in power can choose to do that. Some areas of Wikipedia have gotten so bad that this needs to be done routinely.
So how does this not demonstrate that there is something fundamentally silly about having it be a collaborative free-for-all? The only way you can prevent abuse effectively is by making it non-collaborative by blocking edits and a non-free-for-all since only admins can call for such blocks. Quite frankly, it demonstrates the inherent nonsensical nature of Wikipedia quite nicely. And we're not getting into the area of libel, and the lack of responsibility therein ...
Click on "edit this page". Now, edit the page. Finally, click "save". Its no harder than posting on slashdot.
Colbert was just using wikipedia as an example of how people inentionally alter the facts for their own benefit. The source doesn't have to be wikipedia. Take FOX News for example.
I wouldn't boast about the claimed strenght of Wikipedia for resisting vandalism solely on an attack that was "announced" on TV in a show watched by millions. I know Wikipedia a one of the sacred institutions of the geeks and Slashdot-average-joes but fanatism was stretched a bit too far in this case.
But I'm still surprised at how many +5 postings here support Colbert and what essentially was an attack on wikipedia. Face it, he instrumented a significant waste of time for many editors. If you really wanted to, you could translate that to dollars the same way companies do after receiving website defacements.
Whether or not it was satire or funny is irrelevant. If someone you didn't idolize did the same thing (even if just to make a point or a joke), you'd be burning them in effigy.
"I think Colbert's point was that Wikipedia and other vote based knowledge bases"
Wikipedia is not a democracy. Evidence-based, rational discussion leading to consensus, not voting, is the primary method by which article content is determined.
Articles were protected, but that didn't stop anonymous editors from asking for the fact to be added http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:AFConWikipedia'sAr ticlesforCreationpageon Wikipedia's Articles for Creation page. I'm one of a group of editors who patrol that page, and decide if they're notable and reliable enough to deserve an article, and it doesn't get funny any more.
I do feel sorry for Tawker, though. He was a bit silly with the block summary, and now he's getting threats. And anyway, we block people with Dubya's name in or any celebrity, so when we see someone called Stephencolbert editing, we block and ask for confirmation that it is the Stephen Colbert.
Gunnar wrote on Tawker's blog
Wikipedia's got enough publicity. It's in the top 50 of all sites visited on the Internet according to sources such as Alexa.A good percentage of things on Wikipedia are true, and they're still trying to milk the Seigenthaler controversy nine months on.
Have you seen Mythbusters? All you need to do original research is the will to do it. :)
Slashdot sucks...seriously. Karma be damed but it needs to be said sometimes. Colbert's story is a day old. Colbert's idea didn't backfire. He spent a mere few minutes talking about Wikipedia and made his point. Left unchecked, Wikipedia can be rife with falsehoods. The elephants page is now correct but that's not to say the rest of the site is accurate. It's news that Colbert went so far as to do a segment on Wikipedia. Only a troll would say Colbert's story backfired, or a website trying to stir up attention.
Wrong! The point of the story was to reveal how the Democratic Party is hiding the truth about the resurgence of the elephant population. They will do anything to suppress the true popularity, and therefore population, of anything related to elephants, the proud image and icon of the Republican Party.
Another leftist conspiracy exposed for all the world to see. (Abe) For shame (/Abe).
crowd: ooh.... *starts cheering*
fataugie: *throws chair*
Ooooh, I know how this one finishes:
fataugie: Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers! etc...
You seem to have missed something. All of the words are spelled correctly, they are simply the wrong words. Why are you telling him he can't spell?
I don't think anyone here has really captured the message Colbert was really trying to convey. Wikiality is not about the tyranny of the majority, or the "undeserving" importance that some wiki entries get, but that truth is something that is decidable, that it isn't immutatable. The greatest demonstration of this effect is in wikipedia, where changing what is truth is just one edit away. He goes on to satirically say that all truths should be mutuable like this. With millions still believing the government's lies that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, I think we can all agree that wikiality has become the new reality.
The whole point of the segment was not about Wikipedia. It's about the willingness of people to believe whatever 'truths' are spoon-fed to them by the media, particularly the current administration's spin machine (and before all the republican slashdotters kill my dog, I'm sure this will also apply to future democrat administrations too).
Wikipedia was simply used as a pop-culture vehicle with which his audience could identify.
A One that isn't cold, is scarcely a One at all.
I'm in the same boat. My district is now south of 45th and east of Duval stretching down to the Rio Grande valley in a single line of people along with four blocks in Sugarland.
-rd
Dennis Miller has finally taken his seat at the Algonquin Round Table, only unfortunately for humanity, it was moved to the Star Chamber adjacent to Richard Perle's rumpus room. Even now he's smirking his way through The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, secreted away at his Vegas lair amid stacks of John Birch Society literature, states-rights pamphlets, and sticky Jack Chick tracts. Yes, it's a dark day when the witty ally themselves with the witless, but having the spinal column of that guy who managed to be the last guy to wiggle himself into the packed phone booth, setting the world's record, does play a role here. I don't want to go off on a rant here, but Dennis Miller has as much credibility as Edward Kennedy at a water-safety course. His head is so far up Newt Gingrich's ass that he can smell the chemotherapy drugs Newt's bedridden wife was on when he filed for divorce. It wouldn't surprize me at this point if Dennis Miller was discovered entertaining Mel Gibson with "how many Jews will fit in a volkswagen" jokes as they drunkenly swerve their circuitous way to Rush Limbaugh's house to lift up his stomach so Ann Coulter can "polish the little ditto." But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Thank you.
"A conservative is a liberal who's been mugged", yes, but "a liberal is a conservative who's just been arrested".
"On 9/11 our country was mugged" by terrorists, but now we're learning now what it is to be searched and wiretapped without probable cause, arrested without charges, and detained without legal representation.
I'm hoping that some of these fear-created conservatives will flip over to being fear-created liberals before it's too late.