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Spanish TV Channels Vandalize Wikipedia
strider2004 writes to tell us that Barrapunto, a Spanish tech news site, has outed two TV stations in Spain, one public and the other private, for engaging in Wikipedia vandalism for the sake of a story. (The link is in Spanish; Google translation here.) The public station introduced falsehoods into the Wikipedia entry for John Lennon; the private one vandalized the Elvis Presley entry. Both stations said they were performing an "experiment" to check the reaction time of Wikipedia. Both articles were promptly corrected by other editors.
Update: 08/19 13:01 GMT by KD : Barrapunto is not affiliated with Slashdot.
Update: 08/19 13:01 GMT by KD : Barrapunto is not affiliated with Slashdot.
Bite my shiny metal ass.
Anyone can change it without anything to back it,{{citation-needed}} generally changed by the whiny commie demoncrat terrorists to spread their communist lies.{{citation-needed}}
Wait. How can you vandalize something on Wikipedia? Its a Wiki, and free speech..even if it gets edited out.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Has tripled in the last year.
Then why do they speak Mexican in Spain?
for all the idiots: Mexico != Spain
It is for sufficiently large values of Mexico.
Goofballs add bogus info to Wikipedia; said bogus info is promptly corrected.
This is news?
A Human Right
WIKIPEDIA... A free encyclopedia, so free ANYONE can edit it. Are child molesters using it to reach out to YOUR CHILDREN? The answer... coming up later this hour.
Some people speak Mexican, you know since Venezuela, Peru, and Colombia are all located in Mexico.
Hold the phone here...
"(Spanish Slashdot) has outed two TV stations in Spain..."
How on Earth can two television stations be of homosexual leanings? Also since when was the Spanish Slashdot site an authority on these things? Guess those Spanish speaking nerds just know something we all don't...:)
You open what is supposed to be all the world's knowledge combined in a site, except that the policy is to treat it like a public bathroom. That's fine, but why is it news every time someone gets caught taking a shit in it?
It's fine to let people contribute, but most articles need to be locked down when they are completed, and then you submit stuff to be added for peer review or something. There is no reason why 8 year old Johnny needs to be editing the live version of a page on something he knows nothing about.
Is there enough new information on Elvis arriving, that his page needs to be open to live submissions from anyone 24/7/365?
I can't believe this is true! Why did no one tell me that Slashdot has a Spanish version? Seriously, looking at it is like looking at Bizarro Slashdot.
Are you sure that you are not accidentally implicitly casting the values in your enums (NorthAmerica and Europe) to ints?
Just because it's a medium that allows anyone to edit stuff, it doesn't mean adding bogus information isn't vandalism. That's like spraying painting graffiti on a wall isn't vandalism because paint sticks to the wall.
You mean like this which is linked at the bottom of every single page?
In case nobody remembers, Stephen Colbert's "experiment" proved the response time for fixing BS entries in wikipedia (that librarians are hiding something) in about 15 seconds. Why do they have to try the experiment otra ves? :P
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
The bottom of each page links to Wikipedia'a:
s claimer/
a imer/
s claimer/
l aimer/
s claimer/
General Disclaimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_di
Which links to the specific disclaimers:
Risk disclaimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Risk_discl
Medical disclaimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Medical_di
Legal disclaimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Legal_disc
and
Content disclaimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_di
I think someone should write graffiti on big letters on the walls of these TV stations... purely as an experiment, you understand, to see how long it takes to remove it.
Me Spanish DotSlash Number 1 Fan
Don't you know I'm loco. --Wikipedia.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
"We were just testing to see how fast the emergency services would react..."
I'll probably be modded down for this...
oh really?
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
Their slogan is not "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters", but "La informacion que te interesa"...
What does that make them, the spanish Drudge Report?
It seemed to be ok when the the Daily Show did it.
If thou see a fair woman pay court to her, for thus thou wilt obtain love
Other "experiments" kept from us:
Response time for vandalizing Sonic Hedgehog - 8 days
Response time for vandalizing Sonic the Hedgehog - 8 seconds
So in what other languages is there a /.?
Is there a "Schragstrichpunkt"?
or a "puntinoditaglio" ?
or perhaps even a "schuinestreeppunt"?
Vandalism by the media. I guess another entry for this article on Wikipedia.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Then perceptions != reality. It was never OK.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
You mean "for sufficiently large values of United States of America"
That analogy made exactly zero sense.
A wiki is an online medium that contains information that anyone can edit. A wall is a surface people are generally not supposed to write on regardless of the correctness of the information. I don't have any idea how spray paint got into this, spray paint is permanent, editing text is not.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
I think the reason for the difference in response time to vandalism has not much to do with the expertise required (after all, most vandalism is not written with expertise and thus is plainly obvious to anyone), but rather with the overall traffic to the article, which influences the likely that it will be vandalised in the first place, which influences the number of editors who have acquired, in reaction, the habit of 'standing by' for reversions. In other words, highly vandalised articles naturally acquire several guardian angels, who have become habituated to responding in seconds. Rarely vandalised articles have to wait for one of the editors to make a routine check. Notice that this relationship between vandalism frequency and response time means that there may not much be difference in statistical reliability between a low response time article and a high response time article.
On Barripunto is "Cowboy Neal" known as "El Gringo Neal"?
Is there also a pink version of slashdot? Maybe one with "News for men, stuff that lubricates" or "News for girls, ponies that are cuddly".
That wikipedia outfit is a FAG encyclopedia company. They are faggery daggery doo boys, yes sir.
clicking on the Barrapunto link, I get an advertisement for something called "Dorkbot Madrid"
I think it's the first time an advertisement has ever made me want to buy something, particularly when I have no clue what it is.
Someone mod parent up, +5 inspired.
If these stations insist that such experiments are ok, perhaps someone should suggest to them that hammering a spike through the transmission line of their tower might be just as reasonable. You know, just to check their reaction time. After all, after the fuses and output devices are replaced, it'll be as good as new, eh? :-/
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
On Barripunto is "Cowboy Neal" known as "El Gringo Neal"?
No, but there is the stupid boy who thinks that every spanish speaking country does it with mexican accent.
Most of the comments so far seem very upset that the TV channels did this, but it really doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Wikipedia is a community, a society like any other. It has its values, with accuracy being one of the most important, and someone did a social experiment to see how well that community adhered to its principles. Sure, it required being a little bit of a bad actor, but if Slashdot reported on a new study where researchers bumped into people while carrying several packages and found that Linux users were more likely to help them pick up their dropped items, I don't think the comments would be blasting them for assault.
This was minor public vandalism, of a kind the community sees every day, and a kind that it was built to correct. If they had launched a systematic campaign to spread disinformation throughout many articles, that would be a serious problem, but changing the date of Lennon's death to 2007 instead of 1977? If edits like that caused Wikipedia any kind of damage, it would have died years ago.
You know they actually did ban Steven Colbert for that and they tend to pre-emptily lock things that are brought up on the show for changing.
They picked up two the most famous cultural icons in the world for their experiment. Supposedly, those pages should have been watched by "million eyes" (remember the open software motto?). Comparing that to the graffiti on the wall, which requires much more effort to fix, is plain vanilla exaggeration.
/.
I guess the public ran of the steam of the Wikipedia anonymous fixing by corporate bastards, and now feels the need to pick on whatever left of the story. That is what exactly what traditional media does by beating the dead horse ad nausea. And now
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
OK, how about Van Allen radiation belt where fast editing has prevented corrections? Evidently the fanboys feel NASA is in the wrong, original research perhaps?? As this talk entry shows a glaring mistake has been known for over a year but noone can do anything about it.
I am sick and tired of these stories claiming Wikipedia editors are that good. Rather I see these editors as the direct descendants of the mob that burned the Library of Alexandria.
That's a reasonable argument, but I think you're missing the fact that correcting entries is part and parcel of what wikipedia is all about. I applaud people for testing that system. If we had more journalists who actually investigated things, maybe the media wouldn't have let the voting system become compromised, and wouldn't have let thousands of people die in iraq without mentioning it much.
Vandalising a wall with something relatively permanent is a different issue to this kind of investigation, though. A closer analogy would be something like calling a news station and reporting a false news item, or setting up a fake corruption incident, to see whether the media catches it. Sadly, they're more likely to add weight to such things these days, given how they just repeat press releases word for word most of the time.
"Both stations said they were performing an "experiment" to check the reaction time of Wikipedia."
Maybe someone should perform an "experiment" to test the stability of that TV station's websites.
Wikipedia is an online dictionary. People aren't generally supposed to edit it to contain outright lies on purpose. They can do so, but then again, they can write on walls.
Really ? I must look into it the next time my house needs repainting. And maybe NASA should just forget heat tiles and coat the Space Shuttle with this indestructible material. Not to mention that if you spraypaint your clothes, they become bulletproof - an essential feature in Iraq and American large cities.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Simple demoncrat, look at who cites WikipediaBS as a source. Oh, it is you whiny commie demoncrat terrorists that love Communist Linsux and Open-Sores. It is only you demoncrats that are allowed to change it to suit your agenda in turning America into yet another failed socialist experiment.
Simply block all changes that contain upside down question marks and prevent users signing up if they have more than five first names and three surnames.
Except on the Spanish version, obviously.
If the TV channels really vandalized to see the reaction time of the community, the test is a success I think personnaly this kind of test is stupid if you don't warn Wikipedia Inc it self..
that really wasn't very punny.
Dorkbot put on shows based around the intersection between art and technology - robots, electronic music, all sorts of weird and interesting stuff (their tag-line is "people doing strange things with electricity"). They have groups which hold meetings in cities all around the world. See http://dorkbot.org/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorkbot.
Blimey! There's a spanish /.! and its all orange! Nice.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
The fundamental problem with Wikipedia is that these are at the bottom of the page.
If they were prominently explicit at the top of the page in plain view, people would stop taking Wikipedia seriously. And that is a GOOD thing. Then, and only then, will it become a useful tool.
Although seriously curtailing the power and activities of its moderators would also add trust and value too admittedly. Nobody likes Netzis.
Yes! whenever bicycles are broken, or menaced by international communism, Bicycle Repair Man is ready!
That's why there's no Bicycle Repair Man article on Wikipedia!
Or, you know, not:
b ert
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Stephencol
"BEFORE YOU POST HERE: Please realize that this user was NOT blocked for vandalism, joking, or 'poking fun at Wikipedia'. This user was banned for violation of Wikipedia's Username policies which state that "Names of well-known living or recently deceased people" are inappropriate and should be indefinitely blocked until confirming evidence (in this case, from Stephen Colbert or Comedy Central) shows that this is, in fact, Stephen Colbert. Although Mr. Colbert 'made the edits on national television', he was also joking and it is not at all certain if he was in fact the person who made the edits attributed to this account. Until the blocking administrator (Tawker) receives word from Stephen Colbert or Comedy Central that this is Mr. Colbert, this account will remain blocked."
You?
Really, how do you decide? What do you reference to to decide?
Keep it open and flat as it is now. The moment you start putting restrictions on you'll lose contributors.
Steven Colbert is not famous, or funny for that matter.
After all, I am strangely colored.
It is not promenent at all.
Table-ized A.I.
My post was supposed to be a joke about a classic wikiGroan. I guess the numbers I picked were too realistic. Sorry about that.
TV Stations need to understand that Wikipedia, and any other web service is NOT their own personal plaything, for them to run "experiments" on. Investigative journalism is one thing, but destructive journalism is quite another and is certainly illegal. That's like me walking into your business, pulling out one of your file cabinets, and tossing the contents across the floor because I wanted to see how fast your secretary could scramble to reorganize the files. Sorry if you can't "turn that into a report" on "how fast the Wikipedia community corrects bad info"...if that's even what they intended in the first place.
My gripe about them is that they try to censor criticism of their site by a ridiculous ban on linking to so-called "attack sites"; I've written an essay on it.
--Dan
Web Tips
Both Google and Babelfish translate "CIA" as "the company". Hmmm...
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
It's ordenador, not computadora.
We're talking about Spain.
Today they mess with Wikipedia, tomorrow they will start an experiment with nuclear war. Spanish must be stopped now, for the sake of world peace and democracy!
Ok... I was just taking Steven's word for it. I recall he did mention it on the show.
"TV Stations need to understand that Wikipedia, and any other web service is NOT their own personal plaything, for them to run 'experiments' on" - isn't that to some extent what Wikpedia is by design, a "plaything" for every person who somehow feels the urge to play with it? Anything else would have had to include a more selective and more restrictive decision of who is allowed to contribute in the first place, instead of the concept of allowing everyone everything.
Although the reported activities of course have to be criticized, it's no wonder they happen. And the suggestion they could be likened to vandalizing a closed private business is way out of proportion, because Wikipedia's concept actually invites such activities and has no effective security measures against them.
Actually, anyone can add anything to it. There is no law against changing anything on wikipedia. In fact, changing an entry of a well known topic to see how quickly it gets changed back is an extremely good way to measure the "efficiency" of something like wikipedia.
It's much like the practice of deliberately introducing a number of bugs into code to measure how well a programmer catches bugs.
America, Home of the Brave.
If you need Wikipedia to tell you that Arnold Schwarzenegger was not in Beaches...
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
If you are working on a project that needs reliable info to the point that wrong info would be as catastrophic as "hammering a spike through the transmission line", then you shouldn't be using wikipedia. Go and do the research yourself.
On a related note, I hate when people complain that wikipedia has an entry that is wrong. If that's the case, change it!
America, Home of the Brave.
You never know how damaging wrong info will be to someone, do you? Vandalism is vandalism. That's my point.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I say again. If correct information is that vital to your project you shouldn't be using wikipedia (or even google) for that matter!
America, Home of the Brave.
So, someone is hurt by incorrect information, and you think that's ok because they weren't using sources up to your standards? Not everyone understands what wikipedia is. You're not in a position to inform everyone of how to do research or look up something of interest to them (like a bio) correctly, are you? You're also not in a position to evaluate the emotional and/or financial impact of a wikipedia article, are you? As that's the case, you're also not in a position to deliver an authoritative blanket condemnation of everyone who isn't doing it up to your standards.
The fact is that putting wrong or misleading information into such an article intentionally can have the desired effect, which is to cause problems for people, and as such it is no different than any other act that intentionally causes people problems except in degree, and neither you nor I can accurately estimate the degree of damage bad information can cause. It's vandalism; your attempt to defend vandalism is ethically bankrupt, and always will be because people aren't made up of clones of you - they have flaws, weaknesses and shortcomings, and you can't change that.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Wikipedia is just a smaller version of the internet, especially now that websites are so cheap and blogs are so common.
Not only are students (in the UK at least) told not to use google/wikipedia when researching essays but there is software with complex algorithms to check that essays aren't from the internet.
If correct facts are that important then you will know not to use the internet for your research.
All my arguments apply to the internet as much as wikipedia.
As for hurting people, I am not advocating people vandalising wikipedia, I am saying to people who find innacurate articles to correct them (including people who find innacurate articles about themselves).
America, Home of the Brave.