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False Fact On Wikipedia Proves Itself
An anonymous reader writes "Germany has a new minister of economic affairs. Mr. von und zu Guttenberg is descended from an old and noble lineage, so his official name is very long: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. When first there were rumors that he would be appointed to the post, someone changed his Wikipedia entry and added the name 'Wilhelm,' so Wikipedia stated his full name as: Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Wilhelm Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg. What resulted from this edit points up a big problem for our information society (in German; Google translation). The German and international press picked up the wrong name from Wikipedia — including well-known newspapers, Internet sites, and TV news such as spiegel.de, Bild, heute.de, TAZ, or Süddeutsche Zeitung. In the meantime, the change on Wikipedia was reverted, with a request for proof of the name. The proof was quickly found. On spiegel.de an article cites Mr. von und zu Guttenberg using his 'full name'; however, while the quote might have been real, the full name seems to have been looked up on Wikipedia while the false edit was in place. So the circle was closed: Wikipedia states a false fact, a reputable media outlet copies the false fact, and this outlet is then used as the source to prove the false fact to Wikipedia."
This false fact cycle has been done plenty of times before. There was one recently-ish regarding a football team in some european championship, a british paper included a very silly false fact from wikipedia (something about the fans wearing wellies on their heads or something along those lines) and in a similar way, the cycle was closed. I cant remember the exact details, im sure someone will follow with a link
I hate to bring this to the attention of the nerd community.... the world existed before the explosion of the internet. This is hard to believe, but true. I have it on good authority that the world started sometime in the 1920's.
That being said, this type of problem existed long before the internet "Person A" starts a rumor. Others pick up on it, and a reporter who talks to "Person A" gets his story confirmed by others who heard the story from Person A. Not new. Not news. The speed of things has definitely sped up in the last decade, but this happened also with the invention of the telephone, telegraph and television.
Also, another nice fact. Wikipedia is not your research center. It is a place to start. If you are using it as a source for your research paper, you should get an F.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It's a well known fact among editors. Make an edit to an article on an obscure topic and you have a finite time to verify the facts using online sources. Before long Google has indexed your change and your independent sources get relegated further down the list. After a little more time your article has been used as a source and soon it is not clear as to what is independent fact and what is derived from your own words.
Once upon a time when news outlets reported on news, they needed to protect some of their sources because some of the information could result in retribution on the source. To get sources to open up they promised confidentiality where appropriate and as time went on this became the culture: The news has source authority based on the assumption they are practicing good journalism. As information has recently accelerated, there is less time for good journalism and instead we have good-enough journalism but they still maintain a front of source authority.
Why does everyone seem to get so up in arms when something is wrong on Wikipedia or worse when something is changed to be wrong. Do people really think that a site such as Wikipedia, where anyone can edit (just about) anything, isn't going to get abused. To be perfectly honest I'm surprised it doesn't get abused more than it does. Wikipedia is a great starting point for research it should never be the end point.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
The Hebrew Bible (Tanach? I think the Torah is part of the Tanach, which should be most of the Old Testament. I might be rusty on this) does not quote Josephus' Antiquities, so your example doesn't quite fit.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
As opposed to someone else typed it into a book? My books are not filled completely with references to peer-reviewed papers or committee approved technical specs. And this doesn't exactly give me warm fuzzies about the integrity of publishing houses: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta_Nights The internet is a mixture of facts and inaccuracies, so is any published work. The only difference is now you don't have to be rich to make your mixture of facts and inaccuracies heard.
Research is both about weeding out the important stuff from the unimportant stuff but weeding out true stuff from untrue stuff. Banning wikipedia or failing someone for a refence to it is just pointless. Wikipedia is good for a starting point for research, a representation of what the general public thinks about a topic(factual accuracy being unimportant in that case), and a good exercise in critical thinking (Does it make sense? Can I find other sources that back up what I found? What do the edits/discussions say about the information presented? Why is that important to the topic?).
An unfair one. It's disturbing that you are in a position of power. You are obviously discouraging open-mindedness and creative thought. Many newspapers and journals are a valid source of information in many subjects. Obviously there needs to be caution with them, as there must be with ANY source, but newspapers are legally accountable.
An opinion piece in a newspaper isn't worth much, but an interview, with direct quotes for example, is. Newspapers are used all the time as sources for University level historical research. More than one newspaper is better of course.
I don't know what you teach, but you probably shouldn't be teaching. Der Spiegel is for the most part an ethical publisher, it's certainly exposed many things -- such as neo-nazism -- than other outlets have failed to find.
... could (and probably has) happen with almost any source. The advantage of Wikipedia is that it's self-correcting (not the same as auto-correcting), and shows a history, something not (freely) available with other private knowledge-bases.
Yet another attempt to discredit Wikipedia - Oh well, I know I'll keep using it, as long as it's available, in the same way I use any source of information - with due skepticism.
The post you critique claims that Josephus quoted the Tanach, not the other way around.
The problem is that wikipedia itself discourages the use of primary sources by wikipedia authors. The reason they give is that using primary sources may lead to "original research", which is strongly discouraged as well.
Wikipedia almost always avoids original research, because original research requires that they have staff on hand who will vet the information, and Wikipedia doesn't have the staff on hand to do this.
Biographical mistakes are one of the few cases where Wikipedia makes an exception. Please email OTRS, and they'll make sure that a trusted person reviews the information, and corrects the article. The fact that people who contact OTRS provide their email address (and possibly more contact info) means that you (for once) have more credibility than some random anonymous vandal.
Same type of 'fact checking' happened with the Obama inauguration estimate.
1) News papers reported an estimate of 2 million people.
2) Parks service (which stopped counting crowds after the Million Man March a few years back after their analysis was way below the politically correct estimate) quotes the newspapers.
3)When asked for verification of their numbers the newspaper points to the Parks Services numbers.
Most independant analysis of satellite photographs pegs the number at somewhere between 800k-1.2m ; including estimates for people in transit. Still a very impressive number but nowhere near the hyped multimillions the press had been pushing for weeks so essentially ignored.
The Washington Post did do a follow up piece which exposes some of the problems (after it was pointed out to them that they were the Parks Services source for the 1.8 figure in the first place) but even though they still headline the 1.8m figure it doesn't seem any of their other sources come withing 500k of that number.
In the new age of media, speed of data, and it's ability to match expectations, sadly far outweigh accuracy.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
That's the 21st century version of failing a student for referencing a book from a "popular press" like Penguin, Harper, Random House, Doubleday, etc. No joke, one of my professors told me that when he was in grad school, he was publicly berated for citing one such book, even though it was a reprinted out-of-copyright classic. He was told he should have gotten the reprint published by a university press.