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GMU Prof Teaches How To Falsify Wikipedia — and Get Caught
Hugh Pickens writes "Yoni Appelbaum reports in the Atlantic that as part of their coursework in a class that studies historical hoaxes, undergraduates at George Mason University successfully fooled Wikipedia's community of editors, launching a Wikipedia page detailing the exploits of a fictitious 19th-century serial killer named Joe Scafe. The students, enrolled in T. Mills Kelly's course, Lying About the Past, used newspaper databases to identify four actual women murdered in New York City from 1895 to 1897, along with victims of broadly similar crimes, and created Wikipedia articles for the victims, carefully following the rules of the site. But while a similar page created previously by Kelly's students went undetected for years, when students posted the story to Reddit, it took just twenty-six minutes for a redditor to call foul, noting the Wikipedia entries' recent vintage and others were quick to pile on, deconstructing the entire tale. Why did the hoaxes succeed in 2008 on Wikipedia and not in 2012 on Reddit? According to Appelbaum, the answer lies in the structure of the Internet's various communities. 'Wikipedia has a weak community, but centralizes the exchange of information. It has a small number of extremely active editors, but participation is declining, and most users feel little ownership of the content. And although everyone views the same information, edits take place on a separate page, and discussions of reliability on another, insulating ordinary users from any doubts that might be expressed,' writes Appelbaum. 'Reddit, by contrast, builds its strong community around the centralized exchange of information. Discussion isn't a separate activity but the sine qua non of the site. If there's a simple lesson in all of this, it's that hoaxes tend to thrive in communities which exhibit high levels of trust. But on the Internet, where identities are malleable and uncertain, we all might be well advised to err on the side of skepticism (PDF).""
Further proof that we need the government to assure all of our online identities and stop those that would deceive us!
Truth-telling, I have found, is the key to responsible citizenship. The thousands of criminals I have seen in 40 years of law enforcement have had one thing in common: Every single one was a liar. J. Edgar Hoover
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
That ought to really impress any prospective employers.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
That Noone fellow is notoriously gullible and even if he suspected that an article was falsified he would be too selfish to tell anyone.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
You must be new here. It would have been 15 minutes and 300+ comments before any of us even went and read the article.
[who?][weasel words][citation needed]
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
SO a company was trying to not use Wikipedia, talk to an actually expert to avoid Wikipedia mistakes, and you were a dick about it.
Well done.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I never heard anybody claimed Romney was a Muslim. Plenty have claimed that you're a fucking imbecile though.
George Mason University curriculum:
"Lying About the Past" - a course for ex-Enron accountants, prerequisite for finding another job
"Lying About the Future" - strongly recommended for a successful career in politics
"Lying about the Present" - a required course for MBA majors