Long-Term Wikipedia Vandalism Exposed

Daveydweeb writes, "The accuracy of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, came into question again when a long-standing article on 'NPA personality theory' was confirmed to be a hoax. Not only had the article survived at Wikipedia for the better part of a year, but it had even been listed as a 'Good Article,' supposedly placing it in the top 0.2-0.3% of all Wikipedia articles — despite being almost entirely written by the creator of the theory himself."

Comments

This is why you need multiple sources

[nukem996]

Personally I think wikipedia should be treated as any other source, you should have at least one other, independent, source that backs up the first. I've found mistakes in the college text books that I pay hundreds of dollars for, so if your only going by one source your bound to get screwed. What I really like about wikipedia is that it gives you great sources that you can use, check up on those sources as well.

How many times...

[KeiserSoze]

... does Wikipedia have to be written off as a be-all-end-all 100% accurate encyclopedia? With just short of one and a half million entries, I'm sure there's at least 10,000 partial or even complete fictional articles. Does it affect the encyclopedia as a whole? Not at all. The only people it affects clearly believe *everything* they read on the internet, irregardless of source.

Saying that a certain percentage of articles undermines the whole encyclopedia is likening everybody to criminals just because some of us are.

I just can't believe people are still beating this drum - when will individual cases like this stop making /. news?

Not a Hoax

[sangreal66]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I just read the AfD page and it doesn't appear that this was a hoax or vandalism at all. What it was, was a well written article on a theory that did not meet Wikipedia's notability requirements. It was also written by the creator of the theory which is against Wikipedia's policies on original research.

Proof the system works

[theLOUDroom]

I'd say it's more like proof that the system works.

Sure you can create a false article. It's not like scientists have never falsified their research and published it in a journal, for example.

The proof is whether they're caught and the mistakes are corrected. In an obscure subject this may take a while in ANY format.

People need to learn to apply good research skills across the board, not just to wikis.
Considering the source is one of these.

Irregardless is not a fucking word

[WillerZ]

Irrespective and regardless are words.

Re:Irregardless is not a fucking word

[isorox]

Irregardless is not a word

Yes it is, I saw it in wikipedia!

Irregardless is a word

Wikipedia should NEVER be cited

[Pavan_Gupta]

nukem996, you are not wrong in suggesting that people should use multiple sources when writing things, but the truth is people should never cite wikipedia as a source. It's not because the information is wrong, but it's because the information has not been vetted in a process that can be methodically demonstrated. Even peer-reviewed journals can fail, and they do, but the truth is the information contained in those journals is being vetted by people with backgrounds in related fields and the information is being analyzed in a way that is methodically laid out. If Wikipedia was designed in that way -- where the process was highly moderated, then it would be a legitimate source, not unlike how a book or a journal is a legitimate source. (Although old books and journals are wrong in the worst kinds of ways... sometimes)

I've written several articles on Wikipedia on obscure things (Phosphatidylmyo-inositol_mannosides) which was just an exercise in me understanding my own research, but the stuff I've written, even if heavily sourced on Wikipedia is so obscure I could just make up anything about that and it would likely fly. And the truth is, if I write anything that seems correct, for the most part it will last because it seems correct And therein lies the problem that an unmoderated system cannot solve for. Wikipedia assumes honorable and intelligent users and gives enormous privileges to these users, when just one bad apple can go around slowly obscuring fact with fiction.

Anyway, I've ranted here which is not what I really wanted, but my point is simple: Wikipedia is a good starting point, but should never ever be used as a cited source. Find the information you discover in Wikipedia in another source and use that. And, because you should be a good wikipedia user, put that source into the article.

Re:Wikipedia should NEVER be cited

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, I've ranted here which is not what I really wanted, but my point is simple: Wikipedia is a good starting point, but should never ever be used as a cited source. Find the information you discover in Wikipedia in another source and use that. And, because you should be a good wikipedia user, put that source into the article.

Good post. I'd like to elaborate on one important reason for this.

One of Wikipedia's policies is that no Wikipedia articles should contain any original research. And so any ideas or information that you find in Wikipedia really ought to be attributed to the original discoverers or researchers (not to Wikipedia), and references should be given to the appropriate published works (again, not to Wikipedia).

This is separate from other well-known problems with citations of Wikipedia articles: the article may be inaccurate, the text may be changed at any time (if you don't hardlink a particular revision), and the article may be deleted or retitled without a redirect.

Re:Wikipedia should NEVER be cited

[GreatBunzinni]

but the stuff I've written, even if heavily sourced on Wikipedia is so obscure I could just make up anything about that and it would likely fly.

People frequently make the mistake of thinking that this problem is exclusive to wikipedia. That is false. That problem plagues every aspect of Academia that it isn't even funny. Everyone who spent his fair share of research hours in any university library already stumbled on contradictory information, incorrections and even outright lies on publications adopted by the libraries and in even cases by the courses themselves. These are publications which were heavily edited and in some cases even reeditions.

Moreover, academic fraud is always popping up. Things like falsifying results and messing up with the research variables pop up from time to time. If that type of fraud happens on academic circles where the scientific method is intensely applied and revered, why does it shock anyone when someone makes stuff up in a wiki? But thankfully in a wiki there may be quite a few eyes monitoring the development and, when necessary, edit the text and correct that. That doesn't happen with a book.

Re:The creator?

[anaesthetica]

The vast bulk of the page was written by User:ABenis. You can still view that user's contributions here.

Google Cache of the NPA wikipedia page

[neomage86]

I was curious, so i figure some of you will probably be too.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:UZxn8h7HkXcJ:e n.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPA_personality_theory+NPA+pe rsonality+theory&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&lr=lang_ en&client=firefox-a

Re:Really? Unconfirmed info on wikipedia?!?

[vadim_t]

Newsflash: You aren't supposed to use ANY sort of encyclopedia as a source of anything. Encyclopedias are there to provide a starting point about a topic, not to be used themselves as part of the school work or whatever.

If you ever cite any sort of encyclopedia in your work, any decent teacher should give you a big fat 0. Only valid use of an encyclopedia is checking an entry for something you're unfamiliar with, to learn a general overview and get leads about what you should research.

Re:Really? Unconfirmed info on wikipedia?!?

[MyLongNickName]

Sarcasm or not, you should question everything you read, no matter how trusted the source.

I don't believe this is true at all!