Phony Wikipedia Entry Used By Worldwide Press

Hugh Pickens writes "A quote attributed to French composer Maurice Jarre was posted on wikipedia shortly after his death in March and later appeared in obituaries in mainstream media. 'One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear,' Jarre was quoted as saying. However, these words were not uttered by the Oscar-winning composer but written by Shane Fitzgerald, a final-year undergraduate student, who said he wanted to show how journalists use the internet as a primary source for their stories. Fitzgerald posted the quote on Wikipedia late at night after news of Jarre's death broke. 'I saw it on breaking news and thought if I was going to do something I should do it quickly. I knew journalists wouldn't be looking at it until the morning,' The quote had no referenced sources and was therefore taken down by moderators of Wikipedia within minutes. However, Fitzgerald put it back up a few more times until it was finally left up on the site for more than 24 hours. While he was wary about the ethical implications of using someone's death as a social experiment, he had carefully generated the quote so as not to distort or taint Jarre's life, he said. 'I didn't expect it to go that far. I expected it to be in blogs and sites, but on mainstream quality papers? I was very surprised.'"

Comments

Re:Obligatory

[aus_jackd]

AP and Thomson Reuters (while high quality news providers) are not the ONLY people putting reporters on the ground around the world. Dow Jones has over 2,000 reporters around the world. They also consistently win awards for best news provider, best financial news, journalist of the year etc. The only difference being Dow Jones doesn't give any news away for free. Plus they focus on business and financial news, not your standard "missing white girl" or human interest story.

Disclaimer - I work for Dow Jones. Not as a journalist, but with the journalists.

Unscientific, unethical, illegal, and already done

[Jim Efaw]

This "experiment" has happened repeated on Wikipedia, and is probably happening in multiple places on Wikipedia right now. Apparently there are a lot of these narcissists who think this is a really useful sociology/journalism experiment, but they're the same morons who didn't bother to take 30 seconds to go find out that it's been done before. So, since Slashdot is the most second most important source about everything that ever was (after Wikipedia, I mean), I'll point out a few other things for the so-called experimenters who think this is clever but at least do a search for "Wikipedia errors" before they try it: Not only has it been done before, but it's unlawful, against research ethics, and hypocritical. Specifically:

1. Wikipedia is a private not-for-profit and owns the servers, and Wikipedia specifically prohibits this in Wikipedia:Do not create hoaxes. Doing it on purpose is computer trespassing and/or unlawful vandalism, which is almost certainly illegal where you are.
2. You're intentionally experimenting on human beings without informed consent to research. (Surely your teacher told you about "informed consent" before sending you out to tweak people, right?) If you use the slightest bit of your "experiment" in a class or research paper at any reputable institution, there is absolutely no reason that every Wikipedia editor on that same article shouldn't file an ethics complaint about you, and your teacher that approved it. (Did I mention that you're doing exactly what the location's owner told you not to do, and against human subjects who it is clear consider your behavior abuse?)
3. It's hypocrisy. How would these so-called "experimenters" like it if someone repeatedly inserted hoax lines in their already-written news stories or sociology papers? It's OK, though, because it's an "experiment", right?

It's amazing the kind of people who wouldn't want someone to spray-paint their car over and over to see how long it takes to clean it off, but will do it to other people because it's "just the computer". I wonder what future journalists and sociologists think their jobs are going to be based on 10 years from now. (P.S.: If someone wants this for Wikipedia or somewhere else for some bizarre reason - feel free to copy/modify it as long as you give the same rights to others for the copy/derivatives.)