How Spurious Wikipedia Edits Can Attach a Name To a Scandal, 35 Years On

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How Spurious Wikipedia Edits Can Attach a Name To a Scandal, 35 Years On

Posted by timothy on Saturday October 11, 2014 @08:04AM from the same-complaint-that-the-dracula-family-has dept.

Andreas Kolbe (2591067) writes For more than six years, Wikipedia named an innocent man as a key culprit in the 1978/79 Boston College point shaving scandal. The name Joe Streater was inserted into Wikipedia by an anonymous user in August 2008. The unsourced insertion was never challenged or deleted, and over time, Streater became widely associated with the scandal through newspaper and TV reports as well as countless blogs and fan sites, all of which directly or indirectly copied this spurious fact from Wikipedia. Yet research shows that Streater, whose present whereabouts are unknown, did not even play in the 1978/79 season. Before August 2008, his name was never mentioned in connection with the scandal. As journalists have less and less time for in-depth research, more and more of them seem to be relying on Wikipedia instead, and the online encyclopedia is increasingly becoming a vector for the spread of spurious information.

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Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:12 · Score: 5, Insightful

As journalists have less and less inclination and ability for in-depth research
FTFY
1. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:46 · Score: 0
  
  As journalists have less and less accountability for in-depth research
2. Re:Research by west · 2014-10-11 09:21 · Score: 1
  
  Also inaccurate, unless you have a suggestion to how to get reliable background information on 5-7 stories a day, every single day. Any reporter who does the amount of background work you seem to expect is going to last a few days at most.
  Get used to modern reporting. The less people are willing to pay for news, the more news a reporter has to produce each day to cover their salary.
  There is no free lunch.
3. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:25 · Score: 0
  
  You seem to be suggesting that they work for free.
  Unless someone is going to pay them to put in the time, it simply won't happen.
4. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Get used to modern reporting. The less people are willing to pay for news, the more news a reporter has to produce each day to cover their salary.
  There is no free lunch.
  Get used to the positive feedback loop where people are less likely to pay for the news reporters generate because it's low grade crap. There is no free lunch.
  P.S. apologists for these journalists should advocate the journalists going full blown tabloid. Satan's face seen in oil fire, etc.
5. Re:Research by znrt · 2014-10-11 09:32 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Also inaccurate, (snip) The less people are willing to pay for news, the more news a reporter has to produce each day to cover their salary.
  There is no free lunch.
  also inaccurate. how many stories has a reporter to produce to cover the salary of an executive in the media industry?
  fire the executive, hire 50-70 reporters. voilà: professional journalism in every story.
6. Re:Research by west · 2014-10-11 09:51 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I know the popular narrative: It's somebody else's fault: greedy executives! greedy politicians! greedy everybody else but me!
  But I find that that I can trace many ills back to where they probably belong: me and my ilk.
  I want my news for free, and am unwilling to pay what it costs for pure hard news coverage. It was all nice when classified ads happened to pay for much of for my news fix, and paper subscribers the rest, but since they stopped subsidising my mooching, I don't feel I have the right to expect other people to work for free, just because I'm too cheap and would rather spend my money elsewhere.
  I'm not going to tell other people they need to take a pay cut for my benefit when I'm not willing to fork over the $30 or $40 a month that is what's needed from millions of people for proper coverage.
  No one is eating my lunch. It just isn't free.
7. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:52 · Score: 0
  
  Why would anyone pay someone to just copy stories someone else wrote? We have computers now; only one actual reporter is needed for a given story.
8. Re:Research by mwvdlee · 2014-10-11 10:18 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Right. Just like software developers get all the time in the world from their employers to make secure and bug free products, but they simple don't have any inclination and ability to do so.
  
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9. Re:Research by sconeu · 2014-10-11 10:27 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  For years, I had a paid subscription to the dead-tree LA Times. As the years progressed, the reporting became worse and worse, until the "reporting" was useless. (yes, the quotes missing on the first instance are deliberate).
  I contributed my money to pay their salaries. Guess what? When it devolved into repeating press releases or cloning Wikipedia? I stopped paying.
  
  --
  General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
10. Re:Research by znrt · 2014-10-11 10:40 · Score: 2
  
  I know the popular narrative: It's somebody else's fault: greedy executives! greedy politicians! greedy everybody else but me!
  you are not listening.
  http://www.businessinsider.com...
  the reporters' salary is but an anecdotical tiny fraction of any news suscription you pay. this renders your entire argument pointless because your measures are meaningless.
11. Re:Research by knightghost · 2014-10-11 10:41 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I would go a layer deeper to see what drives lowering journalist integrity... to find that the audience prefers misinfotainment over news. They demand entertainment over learning. Illusion over reality.
12. Re:Research by easyTree · 2014-10-11 11:03 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Perhaps someone should make a few Wikipedia edits to implant the recently-discovered fact that 'journalists are generally lazy'. How long would it be before these implants are referenced?
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
13. Re:Research by easyTree · 2014-10-11 11:08 · Score: 1
  
  Am I correct in paraphrasing your position as "You get what you pay for" ?
  It's binary, either it's accurately-reported or it's not; there are no shades of grey, no matter how little *you* want to pay.
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
14. Re:Research by penix1 · 2014-10-11 11:09 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  to find that the audience prefers misinfotainment over news. They demand entertainment over learning. Illusion over reality.
  I am old enough to remember a day when the news was actually just that... News.... No opinion mixed in. Just the facts. When opinion was offered, usually after the real news, it was labeled as such.
  Then media consolidation happened, the fairness doctrine was tossed and newsrooms nationwide were expected to turn a profit. It is that, not the audience, that caused the decline of in-depth reporting. It is expensive to actually check all the facts in a story. It takes time, money and more importantly sources willing to put the story out. In trying to compete with the Internet, broadcast TV and newspapers nationwide have a tough time beating the net to "the scoop". Lastly, corporations (read "advertisers") are the real ones dictating what the audience sees. You will never see a story about an advertiser because that would be biting the hand that feeds them.
  I argue the last in-depth reporting really only happened when the Vietnam war brought the horrors of war to people's living room and the Watergate scandal opened people's eyes to government corruption. Since then, the government learned the lesson and wiped out all trace of regulation of what is supposed to be the watchdog of government itself.
  
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15. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 11:10 · Score: 0
  
  Works for me.
16. Re:Research by lgw · 2014-10-11 11:27 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  What, a time before Crocknight lied every night about the Vietnam War because he wanted us out of it? Before the a CIA agent who wanted Nixon out used a of couple newspaper reporters as tools to accomplish his political agenda? Before 5 steady years of wartime propaganda to keep morale up on the home front? Before the press conspired to hide the fact the president was a Polio victim who couldn't walk? Was there ever actually a golden age when the press wasn't just politics? I doubt it. Oh, the political agenda changes from generation to generation, but that's about it.
  The only part of the paper you can believe is the sports section. I doubt it's ever been different.
  
  --
  Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
17. Re:Research by Dutch+Gun · 2014-10-11 11:39 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Honestly, I don't believe it's possible - or at best, unbelievably difficult - for someone to present information without bias. In terms of political coverage especially, I'd wager the chances dwindle down much closer to zero. If you don't notice a bias, then you're either not paying attention, or perhaps are in general agreement with the bias being shown, and as such, it tends to appear "neutral" to you (i.e. 'hey, that's just common sense, right?').
  There's bias in choosing how to label things in stories, and there's bias in which stories are reported and which stories are not. For instance, if you typically only report scandals of political opponents but not your own favored party, even if you're only reporting the facts, there's still a bias there. I do think the bias in reporting used to be less overt than today, but I think it's always been there to some extent. Human nature doesn't change so easily.
  The fairness doctrine perhaps made sense in a day when our information choices were limited (I'd still argue against it in principle, as I think it stomps all over the first amendment). But we live in the information age, and no one can seriously claim that a person doesn't have access to a wide range of differing political commentary from a vast network of different sources - not just traditional media, but new media as well. Much of it shallow and repeated, true, but we have access to much more of the raw information in more of a peer to peer fashion, and don't have to rely on what the traditional media is reporting.
  I'm not quite old enough to remember the Vietnam and Watergate years, but I certainly do remember the pre-internet media days. For all it's faults, I'll take today's information age any day, even if the mass media has fallen quite a bit in stature and relevance. What we've gained, IMO, more than makes up for it.
  
  --
  Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
18. Re:Research by penix1 · 2014-10-11 13:44 · Score: 2
  
  I do think the bias in reporting used to be less overt than today, but I think it's always been there to some extent. Human nature doesn't change so easily.
  There is a big difference between bias and pure opinion. Today opinion is quite often reported as fact. It is the difference between what is reported (bias) and how it is reported (opinion).
  
  The fairness doctrine perhaps made sense in a day when our information choices were limited (I'd still argue against it in principle, as I think it stomps all over the first amendment).
  I am having difficulty understanding how giving opposing views on an issue or news item in any way hinders free speech. If anything it enhances it giving the intended audience a broader understanding of an issue. Without it echo chambers such as Fox News and MSNBC exist in a vacuum polarizing even further their respective audience.
  
  I'm not quite old enough to remember the Vietnam and Watergate years, but I certainly do remember the pre-internet media days. For all it's faults, I'll take today's information age any day, even if the mass media has fallen quite a bit in stature and relevance. What we've gained, IMO, more than makes up for it.
  I have no problem with the Internet when it is used properly. But as is often the case, too much trust is placed in what is on the net and these days critical thinking skills isn't in great supply. The Internet has caused traditional media to compete with something they can't compete with. Namely instant content creation. This story is just one example of an error on the net going unrecognized by both professional and lay observers. That is the pitfall of the open Internet. Do I want it to change or to go back to a disconnected world? That answer would be a resounding no. But I wish people would take what is on it with a grain of salt and realize that it isn't definitive.
  
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19. Re: Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 13:57 · Score: 0
  
  I got free lunch at school. I was poor.
20. Re:Research by ultranova · 2014-10-11 14:35 · Score: 1
  
  No one is eating my lunch. It just isn't free.
  
  Except that in this analogy, low-quality food is free. Restaurants tried to compete by being more "efficient", in other words, lowering quality to make the same money with less customers. But of course all that accomplishes is driving away the remaining diners, since they no longer get a benefit for forking over the cash.
  It's no one's fault, really, it's just that newspapers are obsolete.
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
21. Re:Research by west · 2014-10-11 15:00 · Score: 1
  
  Indeed, it's the tragedy of the commons. Enough of us have to be willing to pay for decent reporting or none of us get any.
  So, no, sadly, you can't make this social change on your own while people like me aren't willing to pay.
22. Re:Research by DNS-and-BIND · 2014-10-11 15:04 · Score: 1
  
  Not true. Recently while clicking around I found myself watching a BBC report from 1982 about the Falklands War. Being the BBC, and considering the topic, I naturally expected their famous bias to show itself shortly. It didn't! The report was three minutes of facts. No bias, no narrative, no attempt to tie the report into an over-arching theme to influence society in a direction that BBC overlords considered "positive". Just the facts. I was stunned. So yes, things were better before.
  
  --
  Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
23. Re:Research by west · 2014-10-11 15:05 · Score: 1
  
  I like my Piketty just fine, but boy that's out of context.
  Newspapers are struggling to stay alive, not returning vast amounts on the capital rather than the labor...
  Tell any news organization (start with your community paper!) that in depth reporting is an inconsequential part of their budget. But I'd advise doing it over the phone. You can hang up more quickly when the tirade starts :-).
24. Re:Research by west · 2014-10-11 15:10 · Score: 1
  
  I'd strongly disagree. You can never be certain something is accurately reported. However, you can spend more and more money to lessen the chance that it's inaccurately reported.
  The more I pay (along with several million others - I alone won't cut it), the more fact checking the papers can afford, and the higher their level of accuracy, as long as readers value accuracy.
25. Re:Research by west · 2014-10-11 15:12 · Score: 2
  
  It's no one's fault, really, it's just that newspapers are obsolete.
  I'd in general agree.
  Unfortunately, low reportage is correlated with a mass of social ills (increase corruption for one), so I suspect this development is not welfare-improving in the long run.
  On the other hand, we do save a few bucks each month.
26. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 15:16 · Score: 0
  
  I am old enough to remember a day when the news was actually just that... News.... No opinion mixed in. Just the facts.
  I doubt it. Hearst et. al. get the US into war with Spain. The pro-UK press twisted things to get an isolationist US into WWI. The press conspired in the 30's to hide the fact that the US president was a cripple. The "missile gap" of the 50's and 60's, the get-out-of-vietnam drivel of the 70's, Iraqi troops tossing babies from Kuwaiti incubators in the 90's.
  If you really think that there was a time that the news was just the facts, it means that you're a little less gullible then you used to be, but that you're still to stupid to realize you were being manipulated in the past.
27. Re:Research by Dutch+Gun · 2014-10-11 15:47 · Score: 1
  
  I am having difficulty understanding how giving opposing views on an issue or news item in any way hinders free speech. If anything it enhances it giving the intended audience a broader understanding of an issue. Without it echo chambers such as Fox News and MSNBC exist in a vacuum polarizing even further their respective audience.
  It's pretty simple. That law was, in essence, the government mandating how to distribute political speech, and defining what's "fair" or "opposing views". Even if the intentions are good, it's in direct contradiction to the first amendment, at least from my perspective. Why should we give the government control over our media's political content (especially nowadays, with nearly unlimited mass media capabilities)? That seems incredibly dangerous to me. The entire point of the first amendment is to protect all speech, especially including political speech. The fact that support for/against the fairness doctrine tends to be split along political lines tells you that this is not just about "fairness" either, but about control of political speech one may or may not agree with.
  Your statement about how Fox News or MSNBC are polarizing their respective audience leads into dangerous territory - that of the government making value judgments regarding political speech and acting on it. You're suggesting the government pass a law to better educate people to... what, fall in line with what you (or technically, someone from a government bureaucracy) would consider more reasonable opinions? You don't see this as a problem? Who are they to consider what is reasonable or not an "echo chamber" in terms of political discourse? That's the danger I see in the fairness doctrine.
  Let me ask you a different question. Do you support the government's mass collection of personal data from the internet, or their desire to embed a backdoor in all smartphones (the "magic golden key"?). If not, why not? The government is only using that data to find terrorists or go after bad guys, right?
  It's absolutely the same issue to me. Both issues are about encroachment of the government on personal liberties for the "greater good", and neither is justified.
  
  --
  Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
28. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 16:21 · Score: 0
  
  Let's apply the fairness doctrine to reporting on Climate Change. Equal time for nonbelievers!
29. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 16:25 · Score: 0
  
  My uncle used to cover pro-wrestling for the newspapers back in the 70s. I wouldn't trust the sports section, either.
30. Re:Research by Z00L00K · 2014-10-11 16:30 · Score: 1
  
  Professional journalism - that's what you get in science magazines and other magazines that aren't working with the daily news. The daily news articles runs stories that sell.
  
  --
  If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
31. Re:Research by rtb61 · 2014-10-11 16:45 · Score: 1
  
  What they were talking about had nothing to do with paying for decent reporting and everything to do with PR=B$ agencies taking over mass media and via advertising dollars corrupting the reporting ie paying for reporting in reality ends up paying for lies rather than paying for the truth. So it is hardly surprising that those same corrupt PR=B$ (lies for profit) agencies are also hard at work corrupting wikipedia just as they do any other communications media they interact with. Real focus needs to be taken on fraud laws and specifically protecting certain areas of speech. For example the word 'News' should be protected, use that in the title or in content and truth of the claims made must be able to be proven in a court of law, fail and severe penalties should be applied including imprisonment where false news resulted in loss of life.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
32. Re: Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 16:55 · Score: 0
  
  the part of the newspaper you can trust is the tv program listing. even then it is known to be wrong at times
33. Re:Research by znrt · 2014-10-11 21:22 · Score: 1
  
  i'd say newspapers are struggling to maintain an outdated business model, as customers are not wlling to pay to support the overweight accumulated on it for decades, just for gossip which can be found for free elsewhere. if newspapers actually did invest in delivering investigation journalism instead of printing gossip this could change. maybe! there's a risk. i would gladly pay for it, but i don't know if there really exists a big enough market for that. but for sure it also would require strong work ethics and real passion for the subject, and those are not characteristics you'll find in nowadays direction boards. to these it's irrelevant if they are selling news, footballs, napkins or burgers. they rather just keep publishing the gossip that works and go for advertising, or grab funding from interest groups. if they are not already owned by such groups. for that you don't need first class professionals. underpaid copywriters are just fine.
  of course it's not black or white, but i do not think there is a direct and relevant relationship between what customers pay and the quality of work / remuneration of professionals doing actual work. that isn't true in any big business nowadays.
34. Re: Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 21:37 · Score: 0
  
  I got free lunch at school. I was poor.
  Unless you went to Hogwarts, the lunch wasn't free. Maybe you didn't pay for it, in which case someone else did (typically the people who pay taxes).
35. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 22:39 · Score: 0
  
  The only part of the paper you can believe is the sports section.
  Sports matches are usually rigged. Not always by the newspaper, of course, but there are regional biases in reporting.
  If you want unopinionated and unbiased reporting, try the section with the crossword puzzle. Or the bridge or chess or sudoku...
36. Re:Research by ultranova · 2014-10-12 00:49 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Unfortunately, low reportage is correlated with a mass of social ills (increase corruption for one), so I suspect this development is not welfare-improving in the long run.
  
  Except that newspapers, having long since been consolidated into massive cartels, don't have any interest in reporting social ills, since the owners of those cartels benefit from the status quo. Why would I pay Murdoch for his propaganda?
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
37. Re:Research by DarkOx · 2014-10-12 00:53 · Score: 1
  
  I am having difficulty understanding how giving opposing views on an issue or news item in any way hinders free speech.
  
  Expressing even the idea that alternatives are possible fundamentally spreads those ideas and may even legitimize them in the minds of some. This is my issue with most of our civil rights laws as well, they should be unconstitutional. In order for Freedom of Speech or Freedom of Association to have any real meaning you also need Freedom from Speech and Freedom from association.
  Liberals agree with this principle when its something they support like anti-nationalism, lefties will be happy to show up and defend your right NOT to say the "Pledge of Allegiance", or to stand up for atheistic principles like your right not have to swear on the Bible lest you be associated with some faith. These same people will turn on folks in the blink of eye if they don't want to say be associated with a minority of some kind, and not hire them or whatever.
  Same principle here, nobody anywhere for any reason ought to be forced by government to state an opinion they think is wrong. The right NOT to speak something should be taken every bit as seriously as the right to speak. The other thing about the fairness doctrine was there was always an underlying assumption that some options were so radical and out of norm they did not have to be given air time. Who got to decide that though? The news agencies firstly and second the FCC which thought not very transparent processes did or did not take action.
  So the fairness doctrine was in fact only really fair to people who had views that represented at least a large minority. Fringe ideas could still easily be hidden away. Which is probably a good thing, otherwise anytime someone bring up WW2 we'd have to endure listing to "Of course Adolf may have been right about Semitic peoples, and the final solution may have substantively improved western society" You don't want to require news to report mindless disgusting ideas like that.
  No I think in the end the only really workable plan is let people/institutions report what they thing, let individuals decide if they have been presented with facts that support those ideas or not.
  
  --
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38. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-12 01:58 · Score: 0
  
  I don't think it's possible to deliver "just news". The mere process of writing it out requires selection of words and tone of language (e.g. colonies/settlements/neighbourhoods) and so it's already entwined in opinion.
  What I'd like is what some people call a "viewspaper" where the journalist has a, perhaps uncompromising, moral stand on the issue he or she is talking about and is not afraid to openly state it. Every story then describes the facts of an event and wider circumstances through that lens. Of course they might get it wrong some of the time but it will be frank and from the heart. None of the "paid news" effects because the journalist has written about the event truthfully.
39. Re:Research by jmac_the_man · 2014-10-12 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  Then media consolidation happened, the fairness doctrine was tossed and newsrooms nationwide were expected to turn a profit. It is that, not the audience, that caused the decline of in-depth reporting.
  Regardless of the merits of the fairness doctrine, by the mid 80's when it was repealed, it was NOT ensuring a non-biased media.
40. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-12 02:44 · Score: 0
  
  Face it: your subscription money never really paid their salaries in the first place. It were supported by classified ads.
41. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-12 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  I think this is subtly reflected in the film "The Illusionist".
  Even though one has in his possession a machine which can duplicate people, the owner of the machine realizes it's value is in what the audience desires. So he takes a technical marvel and presents it safely to the audience as a polished magic trick.
  People want the entertainment and they want to feel smart. Infotainment provides both, but when they have to exert themselves, you don't have a captive audience, so it's mostly entertainment. Once the info is gone, who cares if it is mis-informed or informed?
42. Re:Research by mrchaotica · 2014-10-12 09:03 · Score: 1
  
  How do we know what the audience "prefers?" Simple: the "industry association" of propagandists hires Nielson to poll a carefully-chosen selection of the most brain-dead, white-bread Americans to decide whether they prefer the misinfotainment perpetrated by propagandist A or the misinfotainment perpetrated by propagandist B. (Seeing a broadcast of actual facts isn't a choice, of course, so exactly nobody "prefers" it.)
  
  --
  "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
43. Re: Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-12 10:26 · Score: 0
  
  See 'ancient aliens'
44. Re:Research by ChoosyBeggar · 2014-10-12 15:22 · Score: 1
  
  "Ladies and gentlemen, this is Carl Phillips again, at the Wilmuth farm, Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Professor Pierson and myself made the eleven miles from Princeton in ten minutes. Well, I . . . I hardly know where to begin, to paint for you a word picture of the strange scene before my eyes, like something out of a modern "Arabian Nights." Well, I just got here. I haven't had a chance to look around yet. I guess that's it. Yes, I guess that's the . . . thing, directly in front of me, half buried in a vast pit. Must have struck with terrific force. The ground is covered with splinters of a tree it must have struck on its way down. What I can see of the . . . object itself doesn't look very much like a meteor, at least not the meteors I've seen. It looks more like a huge cylinder. It has a diameter of . . . what would you say, Professor Pierson?"
45. Re:Research by Jahta · 2014-10-12 23:09 · Score: 1
  
  to find that the audience prefers misinfotainment over news. They demand entertainment over learning. Illusion over reality.
  I am old enough to remember a day when the news was actually just that... News.... No opinion mixed in. Just the facts. When opinion was offered, usually after the real news, it was labeled as such.
  Then media consolidation happened, the fairness doctrine was tossed and newsrooms nationwide were expected to turn a profit.
  You've hit the nail on the head. If you haven't already, I'd recommend reading Flat Earth News. It covers how the new owners of news organisations increasingly cared more about sales (and advertising) than real news, cut their journalist head count (especially serious investigative journalists), and now get most of their content from a handful of agencies (which is why you see the same stories, often word-for-word, in multiple outlets).
46. Re:Research by ilparatzo · 2014-10-13 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  fire the executive, hire 50-70 reporters. voilà: professional journalism in every story.
  
  Lets not idealize the generic "journalist" as a perfect 3rd party observer of everything that surrounds him/her. We don't presently have legions of journalists who would magically lose the bias in their articles and simply "report the news" if the executive was fired.
  
  The quick way to fame and fortune as a journalist is sensationalism and bias, in the footsteps of whatever extreme example of journalism fits your mold best (Limbaugh, Olbermann, Beck, etc). So those seeking to further their career follow it. The high minded "journalists" you speak of, professional and neutral, spend years trying to advance and in a consumer culture, I suspect give up more often than not.
47. Re:Research by znrt · 2014-10-13 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  The quick way to fame and fortune as a journalist is sensationalism and bias
  ok, but this is just our cultural karma. say, any musician that seeks fame and fortune must go for canned commercial tunes and videoclips in the fashion of the moment. there's still a lot of musicians that won't get fame or fortune, but produce honest, original and good quality music.
  the issue here was cost as in "time is money and if you have to produce 5-6 stories a day, it's just impossible to do them professionaly". a reporter might be sensationalist and even a bit biased and still take the time to do some investigation or fact checking, if he just isn't asked to do so for 5-6 stories a day.
  in the end what happens is that there is not enough demand for professional journalism in the market. that's us. we have been trained into to gossip and bias, we want it, it sells, it pacifies ... so why should it change? i guess the last thing that media corporations want is informed and critical reading, so much for informed, critical writing.
  at some point it will be even machine generated!
48. Re:Research by tlhIngan · 2014-10-14 02:55 · Score: 1
  
  Except that in this analogy, low-quality food is free. Restaurants tried to compete by being more "efficient", in other words, lowering quality to make the same money with less customers. But of course all that accomplishes is driving away the remaining diners, since they no longer get a benefit for forking over the cash.
  It's no one's fault, really, it's just that newspapers are obsolete.
  Low quality food is practically free. It's cheaper to eat at McD's a lot of the time, and it's actually a potentially serious problem because the poor tend to eat there as it's much cheaper. Trying to get your fruits and veggies just costs a heck of a lot more money than the food at a fast-food place.
  Eating healthy is a rich man's game - eating low quality unhealthy meals is super easy and super cheap.
  And newspapers have been dying since radio and TV. The thing is, there is no more efficient format for covering the news in brief. Pull media like the internet are just awful - it leads to cloistered reading and cloistered thinking because users just don't want to "read the boring stuff". Whereas on a newspaper, you get the world picture.
  $DIETY knows how many /. users are completely clueless about what is happening in the world. Ebola doesn't interest you? Or ISIS/ISIL? Or Ukraine? Or Hong Kong? You skip those articles. But on a newspaper, you see the headlines and photos and that puts out way more information than skimming the headlines. Always run reading the comments on a slightly-on-a-tangent ./ article, to be honest.
49. Re:Research by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-14 11:08 · Score: 0
  
  I chucked my subscription to the L.A. Times when they, in the same issue, announced they were terminating the 'World Report' section and included a ten-page, all pages color, supplement on golf.
  I called them up and told them so.
  AC
And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

Wikipedia. The journalist with "less and less time" are never to blame.
1. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:44 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  What a shock. The "Encyclopedia that anyone can edit!" is regularly edited to have biased, incorrect, or even libelous information.
  And then everyone is shocked when lazy people treat Wikipedia as an actual vetted information source.
2. Re: And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:47 · Score: 0
  
  Al Gore.
  He forgot to tell us that the Interwebs are primarily for gossip and unsubstantiated rumor mongering, second and commercercialism, first.
  Journalism is commercial. I.e., the medium is the message. Thank you Marshal McLuhan, for predicting the oversight of Mr. Gore.
3. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:59 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I've lied on Wikipedia, but only one time, and in a harmless-fun manner (normally I'm only produtive and helpful). It was about a thing that's virtually unknown where I live. They had a list of what the object in question is called in different languages, and I added an entry for my language which means basically "WhatTheHeckIsThis?" Because so many sources copy Wikipedia, now whenever I search for the "WhatTheHeckIsThis" term on Google Images, I find tons of pictures of the object in question - from people selling them, people discussing them, etc. Imagine searching on say ebay and seeing someone advertise something as a "WhatTheHeckIsThis?" in your language. lol.
  Sorry..... I know, one shouldn't lie to Wikipedia. But someone will notice it eventually, get a good laugh, correct it, and no harm done. Unless the joke goes too far, wherein one day I may walk into a store and see the object in question being sold and listed as a "WhatTheHeckIsThis?", having been marketed as that by a foreign seller or a fellow countryman who found the joke funny. Which also would be great, lol.
4. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:01 · Score: 0
  
  A liar is always to blame for lying. Certain professionals also shame blame when their professional responsibility requires them to scrutinise the words of people prone to lie, i.e. people.
5. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:11 · Score: 0
  
  I like to poison Wikipedia like that. Just slip in an innocuous little "fact" here and there. It's fun.
6. Re:And the culprit is by Mashiki · 2014-10-11 09:13 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Wikipedia is full of factual inaccuracies, it gets even worse the closer you come to articles on politics or popular culture. Then the neutrality goes right out the window because someone, somewhere is always carrying an agenda. I think my current favorite is the #gamergate article where the founder of wikipedia has stepped in because a particular subset of users and ultra-leftwing feminists skewed the neutrality so badly that even he could spot it. Couple that with a particular senior editor having done nearly 25% of the edits and breaking the neutrality rule, it's now led him down the path where people on both sides of the spectrum want him stripped of the ability to edit at all.
  
  --
  Om, nomnomnom...
7. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-11 09:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Back in 2005, Wikipedia was studied for accuracy against the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And they were found to be about the same. Since then Wikipedia has improved a lot, and they've stopped printing the Encyclopedia Britannica.
  Whilst Wikipedia can suffer from malicious or prankerster edits, it's balanced out by the fact that it's up to date, and a printed encyclopedia is always years out of date. Even when a new edition comes out, most articles won't have been touched.
  Wikipedia could be improved, and the problem to tackle is anonymity. There's really no good reason for allowing anonymous edits. It's not a free speech issue. After that, one could work on ensuring that the editors who adopt certain pages as their own are actually qualified to be reasonably knowledgable about that thing, and not just the people most prepared to jump in and edit most often.
8. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:08 · Score: 0
  
  " Since then Wikipedia has improved a lot, and they've stopped printing the Encyclopedia Britannica."
  Improved how? It still has the same problems it always had only now theyre worse because of the broken hierarchy of editors & moderators. Jimbo will also still personally edit and lock a page if you pay him.
9. Re:And the culprit is by HiThere · 2014-10-11 11:46 · Score: 2
  
  The problems are worse, but it has better coverage of Sailor Moon.
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
10. Re:And the culprit is by Andreas+Kolbe · 2014-10-11 15:43 · Score: 2
  
  Back in 2005, Wikipedia was studied for accuracy against the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And they were found to be about the same. Since then Wikipedia has improved a lot, and they've stopped printing the Encyclopedia Britannica.
  The 2005 "study" comparing Britannica and Wikipedia was not a rigorous peer-reviewed study, and they only looked at articles on relatively obscure science topics – a fact that no one seems to remember these days. The average Wikipedia vandal would not even know how to find an entry on a topic like the “kinetic isotope effect” or “Meliaceae” (two of the articles they looked at).
  
  The assertion that Wikipedia is as reliable as Britannica is ludicrous. Granted, it's a lot bigger than Britannica, and has articles on breaking news stories, but as reliable? Of the English Wikipedia's nearly 5 million articles, at least 10% are on no Wikipedia editor's watchlist – a result of the continuous increase in the number of articles combined with the continuous decrease in the number of active editors – and those articles are sitting ducks for subtle vandalism.
  
  Britannica may have had errors, but it did not contain false information inserted by anonymous people for fun or for financial gain; it contained no anonymous hatchet jobs written by people's rivals, and was not full of puff-pieces written by the biography subjects themselves.
  
  Repeating this false "Wikipedia is as reliable as Britannica" meme only contributes to future cases like this one here, or this one.
11. Re:And the culprit is by lilburne · 2014-10-11 19:37 · Score: 1
  
  I get a good laugh. I also don't correct it. Any one that is looking at wikipedia for reliable information deserves what they get. Eventually even lazy ass journalists and plagiarizing students will realize the folly. Until then "rock on dude". Did you hear about Jagged85 he made >100,000 edits to WP many of which had no bearing to the sources he quoted and in many case the sources were fictional too. He specialized in Mathematics, History, Philosophy, Medicine, and Literature. Much of what he wrote was invented. WP knew about this in 2008, but it wasn't until 2012 that he was banned (for falsifying articles on computer games), In 2010 they had an attempt to clean up the articles. Many of those that looked at it thought that the best thing to do was to stub out any articles that he'd made large contributions to. But they couldn't quite bite the bullet and stub out Number Theory and similar articles. Meanwhile Jagged85 continued to make his falsifying edits for a further 2 years adding an extra 30,000 or so. The 2010 cleanup effort fizzled out a few weeks after it started. So they are still finding sub-articles on subjects such as Evolution that were Jagged85'd.
12. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 20:24 · Score: 0
  
  That was another self-serving Wikipedia editor created lie.
13. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 20:27 · Score: 0
  
  Schools need to teach the proper way to research in this digital age. We as a society need to learn about primary and secondary sources.
14. Re:And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-12 04:02 · Score: 0
  
  The problem is not that you lied on Wikipedia. The problem is that Wikipedia's process is far inferior than existing processes at protecting its material against falsehood, intentional or otherwise.
  So now we are replacing our more expensive, carefully controlled sources of truth with one that distributes lies and half-truths with a vague promise that someone will eventually fix the material post-release. From my observations of human behavior, people tend to have a poor track record of follow through when they've already decided to push "hygiene" tasks into the future. It gets worse when something is crowd sourced as "someone else" can be perceived as the just performer of the task.
  So we've traded quality for distributing the cost, and now we have a very big resource, which actually costs a lot to maintain (but the costs are spread across many people), which isn't very good because it isn't very reliable. Any "fix" that doesn't address the reliability of the information won't really fix the problem. Reviewers who don't know how to check the reliability of the information means they review by mechanism and common knowledge. Not a bad start for Wikipedia, but far worse that the way it was done.
  Previously, you paid an expert in the field to write an article, and then paid (or begged them to do it for prestige) other experts to comment and edit the article, then you had a person try to address all the different viewpoints and comments, checking back with the authors to ensure that the article didn't drift away from our current understanding of the issue.
15. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-12 04:28 · Score: 1
  
  You complain about the lack of peer review on the study, then with no evidence whatsoever, only your hunch, you assert that Britannica is superior.
  
  has articles on breaking news stories... did not contain false information inserted by anonymous people for fun
  I already covered the very different ways ways the two encyclopedias are inaccurate in my post.
  It's no meme. You disbelieving the study doesn't make it so.
16. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-12 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  Improved how?
  It's had 9 years more input. Which means vastly more topics, and more editing of the existing ones.
  No thanks to whiny anonymous cowards who criticise people who actually created something.
17. Re:And the culprit is by Andreas+Kolbe · 2014-10-12 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  First of all, the Nature piece itself found Britannica to be superior – just not by as much as expected.
  
  Secondly, it is a matter of record that Nature only examined science articles, many of them quite specialised. It is inexcusable to omit that qualification. There simply is no evidence at all that Wikipedia is superior to Britannica in other topic areas, and copious evidence within Wikipedia itself of how often articles are biased by special interest groups (just look at the history of Wikipedia arbitration cases).
  
  Third, Nature chose to penalise Britannica for information that was omitted, but contained in Wikipedia: that was counted as an "error". As Britannica themselves pointed out, "Nature accused Britannica of 'omissions' on the basis of reviews of article excerpts, not the articles themselves. In a number of cases only parts of the applicable Britannica articles were reviewed." In other words, they butchered Britannica articles and then penalised Britannica for the fact that the remaining stump failed to contain some item of information that the full article would have contained.
  
  Fourth, Nature noted, but chose not to penalise Wikipedia for, confusing presentation and bad style, essentially proposing that a haphazardly compiled jumble of facts should be considered equal to a well-structured, easy-to-understand introduction to a topic written by a world-renowned expert.
  
  Lastly, there is by now a very long list of journalists and writers found to have copied spurious facts from Wikipedia. Where is a similar list of writers embarrassed for having gotten their information from Britannica? If Lord Leveson had looked up the founders of the Independent newspaper in Britannica, he would not have ended up ascribing that achievement to some unknown Californian student.
  
  Beyond simple errors, there is very copious evidence of bias and covert paid editing in Wikipedia. The Croatian Wikipedia was taken over by right-wing extremists, to the point where the country's education minister warned students not to rely on it, as the country's history was thoroughly falsified by fringe groups. Those are all problems Britannica has never had.
  
  I could go on. I have been a Wikipedian for nigh on ten years. I have seen the problems first-hand.
18. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-12 05:50 · Score: 1
  
  You keep on repeating my point that the category of errors that are in Wikipedia and Britannica are different as if it's making your case for you. No one is denying that vandalism and deliberately false information are amongst Wikipedias main source of defects. Nor is anyone denying that having less coverage and being out of date is the main source of Britannica's.
19. Re:And the culprit is by Andreas+Kolbe · 2014-10-12 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  Please just don't repeat the meme that a Nature study found Wikipedia to be about as reliable as Britannica.
  
  At least say that based on a small sample of articles, a journalistic news report in Nature opined that Wikipedia's science articles were only slightly less reliable than Britannica's, but considerably less well-written, and that Britannica contested those results. That would be the truth, rather than the meme. Mkay?
  
  Your point about the hazards of anonymous contributions is well taken.
20. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-12 06:28 · Score: 1
  
  "Meme: A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another."
  That is NOT a description of what's happening here. It's not a virally spreading idea. I made mention of 2005 study. And I know that not because of a chain of repeats, but because I remember the report from the time, and looked it up.
  It is NOT a meme. And you not agreeing with the study doesn't make it a meme, regardless of whether your skepticism is valid or not.
  I will bring up the study again, whenever it appears to be relevant, because I don't share your view that it should be ignored.
21. Re:And the culprit is by AthanasiusKircher · 2014-10-12 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  That is NOT a description of what's happening here. It's not a virally spreading idea.
  Sorry to interject in your debate with this other user, but yeah -- actually, this IS a virally spreading INACCURATE idea, i.e., that Wikipedia is "almost as good as" or "just as good as" or (in some sources) "even better than" Britannica in terms of accuracy, on the basis of this particular study.
  
  I made mention of 2005 study. And I know that not because of a chain of repeats, but because I remember the report from the time, and looked it up.
  A meme is a meme if it is a meme. Whether or not you personally have learned of this information through subsequent viral spreading is irrelevant to whether it is, in fact, a meme or not. If you happen to post a link to Rick Astley's song as a joke being completely unaware of the phenomenon of Rickrolling, you can't just say, "Oh, it isn't a meme, because I didn't know it was a meme."
  And regardless of how you learned of the information, the fact is that you are reporting it and its conclusions inaccurately, which also happen to correspond with the way the (false) meme tends to report it.
  
  It is NOT a meme. And you not agreeing with the study doesn't make it a meme, regardless of whether your skepticism is valid or not.
  Actually, YOU are the one who is NOT agreeing with the study. Your opponent in this debate has acknowledged multiple times what the study actually DOES say, i.e., a limited, non-randomly selected, non-peer reviewed, small sample of mostly somewhat obscure science articles (which tend to be some of Wikipedia's most accurate, since they are non-controversial, tend to be written by geeks who were the predominant editors in Wikipedia's early days, etc.) were not significantly worse than Britannica in terms of reliabililty, according to some measures of errors that have been acknowledged in many subsequent peer-reviewed expert studies of this issue to be somewhat problematic. There was no intention in the authors of your study to be exhaustive in comparing the two encyclopedias, nor even to have a random sample. There was no statistical analysis of the results. Even calling it a "study" is a bit of a stretch, since it implies a sort of methodological rigor which wasn't present.
  Neither I nor your opponent in this discussion are claiming that this "study" meant nothing -- only that it's not reasonable to conclude a general statement that "Wikipedia is about as good as Britannica" from it. If I went to some local bookstore, found a particular area of local authors the store was strongly know for, and compared their inventory to Amazon's offerings, it would not follow that simply having one strong section of the store meant that this local bookstore was "as good as Amazon" in general. I know this analogy is not precise, but it's the same type of comparison -- saying, "X is as good as Y" when talking about something as broad as an encyclopedia requires a detailed comparison of the entirety, or at least a random sampling of the contents. Neither was done here -- and thus your reported conclusion is invalid.
  That simply is not a reasonable conclusion from the data at hand -- and the fact that the internet thinks that was the conclusion when it wasn't is what makes it a meme, regardless of how you came upon your particular misleading interpretation of it.
  At some point, you may wish to actually read the study you're talking about, to see what it does actually prove. You could even learn what the original authors actually said, such as where they noted reviewers' significant comments on style, organization, etc. which greatly decreased readability in the articles on Wikipedia, even if they didn't contain as many factual errors as people at the time might have thought.
  And, better yet, maybe you should take some time to look at some of the dozen or so (maybe more) subsequent studies of accuracy and comparisons that h
22. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-12 07:31 · Score: 1
  
  Like the other poster you are asserting it's a meme with nothing more than your gut feeling to say it is. It's Not a meme, it's a citation of a study from 2005.
  The empty accusation that I haven't read it does nothing to further your opinion either.
23. Re: And the culprit is by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-12 15:46 · Score: 0
  
  what? the Internet is purely a porn distribution service, everything else is just bandwidth filler
24. Re:And the culprit is by lilburne · 2014-10-12 21:52 · Score: 1
  
  I looked up a German Theologian the other day. The WP article was created in 2003 as a c&p of the 1911 EB article. No improvement has been made since to the WP article except to add some references to the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia, and a couple of other pre 1910 sources. Modern scholarship discounts much of the 1911 EB article. EB has been updated WP has not. You know 113 years is a long time to wait for an update.
25. Re:And the culprit is by lilburne · 2014-10-12 21:54 · Score: 1
  
  The study was flawed, you now know that now as two people have dissected it for you. but you persist with the folly. Frankly you deserve WP: the world's largest dump of unreliable facts for use by idiots.
26. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-13 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  I looked up a German Theologian the other day.
  
  A nameless one apparently.
27. Re:And the culprit is by BasilBrush · 2014-10-13 07:23 · Score: 1
  
  The study was flawed, you now know that now as two people have dissected it for you.
  Two slashdot posters being of the same mind does not make them right.
  
  Frankly you deserve WP: the world's largest dump of unreliable facts for use by idiots.
  WP is used by everyone, including academics.
Journalists have less time... by bazmail · 2014-10-11 08:20 · Score: 4, Insightful

...because they're busy doing what?
1. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:37 · Score: 1
  
  Reading wikipedia, I think.
2. Re:Journalists have less time... by maliqua · 2014-10-11 08:48 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  developing the complex work of fiction they want to portray as news, it takes some time to make an elaborate and convincing lie
3. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:49 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  "...because they're busy doing what?"
  ebola. ebola. EBOLA!
4. Re:Journalists have less time... by Chris+Mattern · 2014-10-11 08:50 · Score: 1
  
  ...because they're busy doing what?
  Covering the beats of the four co-workers who were let go, mostly.
5. Re:Journalists have less time... by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-10-11 08:52 · Score: 2
  
  ...because they're busy doing what?
  Collecting unemployment checks.
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
6. Re:Journalists have less time... by Richard_at_work · 2014-10-11 08:57 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Doing nothing. Having less time doesn't necessarily mean they have more to do, it can also mean that turnaround times have been drastically reduced - while 20 years ago a journalist had until the evening news or the late edition print run (or early edition) to break a news story, with everyone else working on the same basis, today you have people checking news sites hourly, getting push updates, and a lot more discussion going on. Minutes can matter to news networks these days, as its the difference between breaking it first or second.
7. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:57 · Score: 1
  
  Most of them are busy not being employed as journalists, since no one wants to pay for the news or even see ads. The few journalists left with jobs are swamped with work. The common modern problem: people demand more for less, get it, and complain that quality has gone in the shitter.
8. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:58 · Score: 0
  
  Reading Wikipedia?
9. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:05 · Score: 0
  
  Getting news out before competitors for advertising revenue's sake.
10. Re:Journalists have less time... by real+gumby · 2014-10-11 09:05 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  ...because they're busy doing what?
  At first I read this comment as throwaway snark about listicles and the like, but then it raised for me a pretty interesting question:what evidence do we have that current reporting is less rigourous than it was in the past?.
  I recently looked up the newspaper from the day after I was born and found it full of trivial stuff (except my birth announcement of course!) and articles that looked like they uncritically repeated what one source had told them. I am not sure the quality of reporting, in reality, was ever any better than now.
11. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:21 · Score: 0
  
  If you want evidence that current journalism is worse than previous generations, just look at the number of absurd hoaxes that get reported as fact. Back when it took a little effort to gather information, people took it more seriously. Back when publishing was on a schedule, people had more time.
  Now "Journalism" consists of copying press releases and retweeting stuff from random strangers.
12. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:26 · Score: 0
  
  Not to mention the 2 fact checkers who were also let go - who were shared between the 4 journalists who were let go and the 1 who is left.
13. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:27 · Score: 1
  
  I think there have always been low-budget reporting. The problem seems to be that today there is much less high-budget reporting.
14. Re:Journalists have less time... by real+gumby · 2014-10-11 10:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If you want evidence that current journalism is worse than previous generations, just look at the number of absurd hoaxes that get reported as fact. Back when it took a little effort to gather information, people took it more seriously.
  
  There have always been hoaxes, small and large. I'm just saying I haven't seen any study (though I would hope such a study exists) showing if the quality has gone up or down or is unchanged. My comment (and yours) are simply anecdote.
  A sense of declinism (things were better "in the old days") has been a recurring theme for millennia.
15. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:07 · Score: 0
  
  ...because they're busy doing what?
  youfapfap.com ?
16. Re:Journalists have less time... by easyTree · 2014-10-11 11:15 · Score: 1
  
  Hardly; it's spoon-fed to them by the 'news' organisation up the chain.
  
  --
  Requiem for the American Dream
17. Re:Journalists have less time... by Culture20 · 2014-10-11 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  Minutes can matter to news networks these days, as its the difference between breaking it first or second.
  Which is silly since the difference between first and last is thirty seconds at most. First used to mean something back when papers came out once a day. A full day's lead time on an important story means everyone buys your paper that day. Today, I'd rather pay attention to a news service that checks sources and gets the story right than one that "had it first".
18. Re:Journalists have less time... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 11:18 · Score: 0
  
  Another alternative though is that there were just as many hoaxes in the past...but without the Internet and easy sources of information to counter the baloney we didn't learn about them as often as we do today.
19. Re:Journalists have less time... by Kjella · 2014-10-11 11:23 · Score: 1
  
  Not to mention that it was a lot more obvious who was copying and who was not. Ever hear the expression "yesterday's news"? Well that was whatever they read in a competitor's paper yesterday and printed as news today. Today I'm sure they all have watcher services on each other, for every article posted they have someone evaluate whether they can run a copycat article. And I don't mean that in terms of copyright infringement, but just knowing that some event happened and is newsworthy they can write their own, non-infringing article using much the same sources. Today that might mean that one online site is 5-10 minutes behind the original source instead of a day, most people don't even notice who broke the news. Like today pretty much all our services covered the hit-n-run of a cyclist that died. I'm sure someone was first but it's not exclusive and they can all use the same source so they don't have to cite anyone. I suppose investigative journalism is still valuable, but "discovering" journalism has lost a lot of value.
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
20. Re:Journalists have less time... by ShaunC · 2014-10-11 14:06 · Score: 1
  
  Ever hear the expression "yesterday's news"?
  That was a brand of cat litter I used about 20 years ago, it was made out of recycled newspaper and I always liked the name. Looks like they still make it, I wonder how long before it gets discontinued due to a lack of raw materials.
  
  --
  Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Journalists? by Seumas · 2014-10-11 08:21 · Score: 5, Interesting

Nobody does any investigative journalism anymore. They take press releases, talking-points, and pre-packaged bits from government agencies and NGOs and tag them with an open and close bit by a local anchor and that's it.
Look at your average idiot on Tumblr. That is the quality of the average "journalist". Actually, pick a random Tumblr user and they probably *are* a "journalist".
Also, so what? We've already decided you can say whatever you want about whoever you want on the internet and that's okay. No recourse. Look at Rip Off Report or Yelp or that site that "shames" ex boyfriends. If all of that is fair game, why shouldn't wikipedia be?
1. Re:Journalists? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:37 · Score: 1
  
  There are plenty of journalists doing good investigate journalism. Look at Pro Publica.
  It's just the old-guard media organizations--ABC, The Washington Post, etc--that have cut back. The American public was blessed for 40 years in that the large media outlets did pretty decent investigative journalism. Far from perfect and unbiased, but still rather good. It was an anomaly. Now we're back to the way things were for nearly 200 years in terms of the commercial media. But with sites like Pro Publica, etc, at least the journalism is still being done, it's just not being spoon fed to the citizenry like it was during the latter half of the 20th century.
2. Re:Journalists? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:05 · Score: 0, Interesting
  
  There are plenty of journalists doing good investigate journalism. Look at Pro Publica.
  It's just the old-guard media organizations--ABC, The Washington Post, etc--that have cut back. The American public was blessed for 40 years in that the large media outlets did pretty decent investigative journalism. Far from perfect and unbiased, but still rather good. It was an anomaly. Now we're back to the way things were for nearly 200 years in terms of the commercial media. But with sites like Pro Publica, etc, at least the journalism is still being done, it's just not being spoon fed to the citizenry like it was during the latter half of the 20th century.
  Warning: Pro Publica is a site for leftists posing as journalists.
3. Re:Journalists? by fustakrakich · 2014-10-11 09:09 · Score: 2
  
  Nobody does any investigative journalism anymore.
  What's the incentive? The whole world is on this *kill the messenger* bent. What does honest reporting get you? A lot of grief, that's what. It sure doesn't pay the rent...
  
  --
  “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
4. Re:Journalists? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:45 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  The content is obviously left leaning. But it's well researched and quite professional. AFAIK, there's no journalistic ethic that says you need to publish articles for conservative interests along with those for liberal interests.
  I also like the Financial Times, which is generally conservative (not American Conservative, but conservative nonetheless). And they do decent reporting as well. I also read the South China Morning Post.
  Grow up.
5. Re:Journalists? by dunkindave · 2014-10-11 10:14 · Score: 1
  
  The content is obviously left leaning. But it's well researched and quite professional. AFAIK, there's no journalistic ethic that says you need to publish articles for conservative interests along with those for liberal interests.
  I wouldn't know Pro Publica from a hole in the wall of a newspaper building, but there is a difference between publishing well-researched articles though only those that favor your leanings, and publishing tripe for the sake of publishing. The first are still informative even if they aren't want you would like the reality to be, while the second makes you question anything such an organisation publishes. This all assumes one really is a critical thinker since too many people who claim to be are not.
6. Re:Journalists? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:17 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe they don't because it's getting dangerous: Hastings
7. Re:Journalists? by Dragonslicer · 2014-10-11 14:59 · Score: 1
  
  Warning: Pro Publica is a site for leftists posing as journalists.
  Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
8. Re:Journalists? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 16:34 · Score: 0
  
  Where's your reference?
9. Re:Journalists? by Seumas · 2014-10-11 17:20 · Score: 2
  
  There would seem to be few benefits to bothering with actual investigative journalism, anymore and a lot of negatives.
  One problem is that it is simply easier *not to*.
  If you watch media closely enough you will see countless "news stories" that are not only covering the same topic and doing so from the same perspective, but using the same catch phrases and identical story titles and blurbs. There are so many places out there (the government not the least of which) who will gladly provide you with free pre-packaged content that you just attach yourself to the by-line of and your job is done. Not only is your job done, but you've earned a kudo from the homeland.
  Then there are pre-packaged pieces from pharmaceutical companies and various political organizations or activist groups. And there are plenty of pieces that are pre-packaged and then you're paid to run the pieces as if they were actual news (these are usually very easy to spot and seem like a daily part of the national morning shows on the big three networks as well as local evening news).
  Not to mention the time involved. We live in a world where being wrong fifty times is better than being late fifty times. In the time you took to come up with an idea, investigate it, properly source it, write it, have it edited, and then published it -- everyone else has put up a hundred new pieces of news. They're more productive than you. They generated more content. They served more eyeballs. Those eyeballs looked at more ads.
  It's better to just copy someone else's work (either through the packages I mentioned, talking points being issued out -- remember that what's his name at NewsCorp is famous for setting the company news-reporting party-line, or just through outright jotting down a story based on all the other news stories and blog posts you've read that morning). You don't even have to give attribution or source it.
  As a result, we live in a world where you can say anything, push any biased lines, push any paid agendas (or push agendas simply because it's easier than producing your own content), and you never have to say that you're sorry when you're wrong. No matter the consequences. And nobody is ever held accountable for what they *don't* report, anymore. And "people familiar with the matter" and "sources say" and "it was reported" are now considered "sources". Who can doubt what you *do* report with vetted sources, like that? (Or the nasty trick we like to pull where we, as a government, plant an article in the Zimbabwe Evening Journal and then count that as a source when we go to report on whatever bullshit we're spinning, locally).
  By the way, your comment seems to imply a bit of "hey, excuse the journalists - it's not their fault" in it. While I agree that there is more to lose by doing investigative journalism than by just going along with the miserable degradation of it, let's not forget that the ranks are now filling with a whole generation of the people that tell us they would rather spend on-the-clock time on facebook, twitter, and instagram and expect to be the EIC of the WSJ by the time they've had time to frame their degree, lest they feel they've been cheated, somehow.
  Having had the fortune to know a great many journalists (some of them truly legitimate journalists and some of them from the old-school vanguard that held their responsibility in high esteem), I think it is safe to ultimately conclude that it is a mix of the two. It is one part completely corrupted and failed system at every level and one part non-principled copy-and-pasters more interested in putting on romantic airs of the journalist gig than putting in the work and taking the risk of it.
  I'd be lying if I said I had a god damn clue how to fix any of it.
10. Re:Journalists? by Dragonslicer · 2014-10-12 00:36 · Score: 1
  
  http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/38777.html
Wikipedia is not a source. by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:28 · Score: 0

News at 11.
Re:LinkedIn page for "Joseph Streater" by OzPeter · 2014-10-11 08:46 · Score: 1

Disclaimer: Not saying this LinkedIn page is him, but it could be.
Which puts you on the same level as all those trashy journalists and shady talkshow hosts:

Here are the "facts". We don't know if they are true. But you be the judge of that

--
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Citogenesis by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:49 · Score: 1

obligatory link
Don't dis Wikipedia by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-10-11 08:51 · Score: 1

Without it I would've never learned about CmdrTaco's role in the My Lai Massacre.
Your past will eventually catch up with you, Mr. Malda...

--
#DeleteChrome
1. Re:Don't dis Wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:04 · Score: 0
  
  Without it I would've never learned about CmdrTaco's role in the My Lai Massacre.
  Are you referring to last night's My Tai Massacre? I didn't even see CmdrTaco at the bar.
2. Re:Don't dis Wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:22 · Score: 0
  
  No, the GP is referring to the My Tie Massacre where CmdrTaco snipped all of his expensive silk ties in half.
3. Re:Don't dis Wikipedia by 93+Escort+Wagon · 2014-10-11 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  Oh you kids... What do they teach you guys in school these days?
  My Lai Massacre
  
  --
  #DeleteChrome
Re:LinkedIn page for "Joseph Streater" by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 08:55 · Score: 0

Which puts you on the same level as all those trashy journalists and shady talkshow hosts
Excellent! When do I get paid?
A key part of the solution... by MikeRT · 2014-10-11 08:56 · Score: 2

Would be defamation laws. They need to be vigorously enforced. False information like this is actually criminal in many jurisdictions. It's time that crap like this gets the submitter pummeled in court instead of "duh duh freedom of speech."
1. Re:A key part of the solution... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:01 · Score: 0
  
  Well, no. People will listen to what they want, make up their minds, and then it is very difficult to get most people to change that initial perception, facts be damned.
  Some people can have epiphanies and change, but most just dig in their heals.
  At the very least, we have places like Great Britain, where it is possible to be sued for defamation/libel/slander even if what you may have said about someone is true.
  Or the usual court statement in a jury trial: "So, for the jury, please tell us, when was the last time you beat your spouse?"
Citogenesis! by Jeremi · 2014-10-11 08:59 · Score: 2

Seems legit

--

I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Oh good... by denzacar · 2014-10-11 09:02 · Score: 1

I thought that the world is about to end (again) and that we were all running out of time.

--
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Stephen Colbert called it! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:02 · Score: 0

WIKIALITY
ObColbert by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:04 · Score: 1

http://thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos/z1aahs/the-word---wikiality
The author is his own best example! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:09 · Score: 0

Wikipedia is not in any way INCREASINGLY a vector for the spread of spurious information". It has always been. Since day one it has said openly "Do not use us as a primary reference". Obviously, since the statement was false, it could not have had a reference. Therefor the person who repeated it was the source of the problem.
In short, this author is writing a "file this under D for Duh" article about people writing articles without doing research. Congratulations, sir! You are your own best example!
Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by floobedy · 2014-10-11 09:11 · Score: 4, Informative

As an experiment, I added a spurious and incorrect fact to an obscure wikipedia article, complete with a reference to a document which did not support the claim. It took years before my edit was noticed and reversed.
This only works with obscure articles. The more obscure the article, the less it's checked. If you try inserting something spurious into the page on Obama it will be reversed in about 5 minutes.
1. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by BasilBrush · 2014-10-11 09:20 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  That's not an experiment, that's vandalism.
2. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:29 · Score: 0
  
  Hey there mr black and white!
  Grown-ups understand that something can be more than one thing at a time.
3. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:22 · Score: 0
  
  Hey there mr black and white!
  Grown-ups understand that something can be more than one thing at a time.
  Okay it's an evil experiment! Everyone happy now?
4. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:59 · Score: 0
  
  Only if the document he referenced pointed to some goatse domain url.
5. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 11:44 · Score: 0
  
  Hey there mr grown-up!
  Conducted any more than one rape at a time experiments lately? any less of a crime, despite its grown up dual nature?
6. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by NoMaster · 2014-10-11 11:48 · Score: 2
  
  As an experiment, I added a spurious and incorrect fact to an obscure wikipedia article, complete with a reference to a document which did not support the claim. It took years before my edit was noticed and reversed.
  This only works with obscure articles. The more obscure the article, the less it's checked. If you try inserting something spurious into the page on Obama it will be reversed in about 5 minutes
  No, it works with non-controversial subjects. Pick an article on a subject that's not obscure and also not particularly controversial - for example, common household substances, typical garden flowers, etc. - and read a few of the citations.
  You'll be surprised how many don't support - or, in some cases, don't even relate to - the associated statement in the Wikipedia article. Most of it is stuff that is "common knowledge" that is false - but some authors/editors are so sure of its truth that they cite anything vaguely related to back up the common belief.
  
  --
  What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
7. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 13:26 · Score: 1
  
  As an experiment, I added a spurious and incorrect fact to an obscure wikipedia article, complete with a reference to a document which did not support the claim. It took years before my edit was noticed and reversed.
  This only works with obscure articles. The more obscure the article, the less it's checked. If you try inserting something spurious into the page on Obama it will be reversed in about 5 minutes
  No, it works with non-controversial subjects. Pick an article on a subject that's not obscure and also not particularly controversial - for example, common household substances, typical garden flowers, etc. - and read a few of the citations.
  You'll be surprised how many don't support - or, in some cases, don't even relate to - the associated statement in the Wikipedia article. Most of it is stuff that is "common knowledge" that is false - but some authors/editors are so sure of its truth that they cite anything vaguely related to back up the common belief.
  Authors and journalists today are for the most part of extremely low caliber. I recently came across a blog by a guy who works at a Washington think tank. This guy regularly posts blogs where he discusses the dangers of Islam. He calls himself an expert on radical militant Islam and is in the process of publishing a book on the subject. This blog post of his contained a long tirade about how Islam is a religion of murder and intolerance and how it is a danger to all of the rest of human civilization. As a part of his effort to underline his claim this journalist/expert posted a picture of crucified Armenian women taken in 1917 or 18. The interesting thing is that the picture was lifted from an old German book, complete with caption. The problem with that was that our expert on radical Islam had neglected to read the German language caption which stated that after these women had been crucified and the perpetrators had left, the ones that still lived were taken down from the crosses and rescued by (Muslim) Beduin tribesmen. How stupid do you have to be that you put a picture into your article that discredits the generalizations you made in your article because you were to lazy to run the caption through Google translate?
8. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by Animats · 2014-10-11 13:39 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That's not an experiment, that's vandalism.
  Exactly. As one of the people who spends time cleaning up stuff like that, it's seriously annoying. Fortunately, the tools for automatic jerk identification are improving.
  The paid editors are even worse. But they have a recognizable editing pattern; they write PR-type prose. Self-promotion on Wikipedia used to be mostly from garage bands. Now it's more corporate. (Also, the self-promoting garage bands have been replaced by self-promoting DJs.)
9. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 15:29 · Score: 0
  
  Does being a dick make you feel like more of a man? If you head to the local gay bar, you can find yourself a real man.
10. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by floobedy · 2014-10-12 16:21 · Score: 1
  
  Fortunately, the tools for automatic jerk identification are improving.
  If that were true, you wouldn't be able to post on slashdot.
  
  As one of the people who spends time cleaning up stuff like that, it's seriously annoying.
  It was a legitimate experiment to an extremely obscure article, and it had no serious negative consequences.
  Promoters of wikipedia frequently claim that the source is highly accurate because inaccuracies are rapidly corrected. If they make claims like that, it's legitimate to test whether the claims are true.
11. Re:Wikipedia is sometimes wrong by floobedy · 2014-10-12 16:23 · Score: 1
  
  No, it works with non-controversial subjects.
  Unfortunately, it also works with controversial subjects if the article is obscure enough.
  I recently came across a page about a fringe crackpot group which included highly inflated membership estimates (in the millions of members, rather than a more accurate estimate of about 300 members). Since the group was very obscure, the incorrect claim had persisted for years. The only people monitoring the page appeared to be group members.
to become famous by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:19 · Score: 0

I've been doing this a lot of late. I'm going to be the most infamous and famous person in the world by 2020!
1. Re: to become famous by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:21 · Score: 0
  
  Oh wait! EVERY ONE KNOWS ME!!! I'm "ANONYMOUS COWARD"!!!!! Ha Ha Ha HO HO HO
Not checking your facts = Fireable offense by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 09:45 · Score: 0

One can dream, OK?
I'm sorry - this is an american nee topic? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:09 · Score: 0

NFI what this news event is about and not interested to find out...america seems like a nice place to visit though!
FIRST! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:09 · Score: 0

About sums it up, if you facts check you miss the opportunity and Google will send the traffic to someone else!
Re: Wikishit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:12 · Score: 0

Well dude, the Westminster dog show seems to think that the American Staffordshire Terrier is a separate breed from the English one
www.westminsterkennelclub.org/breedinformation/terrier/amstaff.html
But what do they know right?
The Reason... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 10:35 · Score: 0

...that Wikipedia is a steaming pile of crap. Almost as bad as this damned beta with its fucking Javascript ads that crash Firefox.
1. Re:The Reason... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 11:13 · Score: 0
  
  Beta > you.
  STFU with ur whining.
Citation needed by buckfeta2014 · 2014-10-11 10:48 · Score: 1

This could all have been avoided if the citation whores at wikipedia actually gave a shit about random articles instead of whoring edits (and reverting edits they didn't make) on a small handful of articles.

--
Buck Feta. You know what to do.
Deciding what not to report... by Nova+Express · 2014-10-11 11:04 · Score: 1

...because it might put favored liberal policies or politicians in a bad light. That's why Sharyl Attkisson resigned.

--
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Which is why Wikipedia is better by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 11:34 · Score: 3, Informative

In the good old days, people also wrote nonsense and published it and it was repeated over and over until everyone accepted it as the truth (the story of George Washington and the cherry tree is an example familiar to most Americans). Wikipedia is no different, except that it has an audit trail: now you can see where and when a specific statement came from. With older media, this is seldom possible.
1. Re:Which is why Wikipedia is better by HiThere · 2014-10-11 11:59 · Score: 1
  
  You can trace down the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, too. I'm not sure about the one about him throwing a half dollar over the Potomac.
  
  --
  
  I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Wikishit by HiThere · 2014-10-11 11:58 · Score: 1

IIRC from my school years, when the Spaniards landed in the new world, the Indians already had dogs, but not horses. If this is correct, as I assume, at least one of your assertions is factually inaccurate, unless you push "native dogs" back 10,000 years or more. It would be almost like saying Australia had no native dogs. Sort of a weird use of the language, even if defensible if you specify what you mean.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re: Wikishit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 12:01 · Score: 0

I guess it depends on what the Wikipedia said the day *they* looked at it...
I'll get my coat.
This problem pre-dates wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 12:30 · Score: 0

Back when news outlets and encyclopedia dominated the truth market, this sort of thing happened just as often, and had just as much staying-power.
For example, the famous bathtub hoax was an experiment in deliberately inserting completely made-up facts, without any supporting citations, into a trusted source, and then tracking how far the misinformation went. Even after the author of the hoax publicly fessed up, his fake information lived on unchallenged.
(Yes, I recognize the irony in choosing to link to wikipedia for that information. I figure slashdot can cope.)
jump to conclusions mat by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 15:20 · Score: 0

How do they know that Streator had no involvement? Just because he wasn't implicated before the Wikipedia edit doesn't mean he wasn't involved. Streator is incommunicado and the identity of the editor is unknown. For all we know it was Streator who made the edits, out of guilt for never getting caught...
unfortunately true by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 15:56 · Score: 0

There was a recent bit in Wikipedia that Albert Einstein invented the Lorenz SZ40, SZ42A and SZ42B
machines in WWII. Folks need to read more and fix the rubbish instead of arguing.
So, Wikipedia is almost as bad as mainstream media by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 20:48 · Score: 0

After Reagan won election in 1980, some bitter staffers started circulating a story that he had stolen the election by making a secret deal with Iran. Ther was no evidence at att, but a staffer wrote a book and then Hollywood made a movie and so the network news shows gobbled it up as part of the book- and movie- related "tours". People like ABC's Ted Koppel did such an interview on his "Nightline" show. This stuff soaked-into the national psyche and now a large number of people believe it (even though the details of the story worked out to be physically impossible). Once the mainstream press has run with something, even if they later drop it, it will still have wormed its way into the culture. Many people who were born after Reagan retired, and who never saw these stories themselves, still have some familiaruty with them and think they are factual.
NBC had a comedianne impersonating Sarah Palin claim she could see Russia from her house. Now MANY Americans are certain Sarah Palin said this.
The US Constitution, a short easy-to-access-and-read source document, NEVER says that black people are 3/5ths of a person. Political activists have injected this into many books and lesson plans, magazine ad web articles and as a result, most people think the US Constitution said that black people were only worth 3/5ths as much as white people. Note: What the Constitution actually said was that "non-free persons" could only be counted as 3/5ths of a person for assigning congressional seats - and at the time it was written there were "non-free" white people as well as black slaves, there were some free blacks who were themselves slave owners, and the free blacks in the northern colonies were counted as full people; the Constitutional clause was NOT tied to skin color.
There are many, many other examples, but I chose these three because there are almost certainly people on Slashdot who have fallen victim to them.
Slashdot title, here we go again by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 21:49 · Score: 0

How Journalists Not Checking their Sources Can Attach a Name To a Scandal, 35 Years On
FTFY
Wikipedia never claimed to be a reliable source. It cannot possible be a reliable source, it's a fucking wiki. It's no better a source than an IRC channel. In the best case, a citation on Wikipedia directs you to a source you can check and refer to.
In contrast to most Wikipedia editors, journalists are payed to do their jobs, so we should hold them to a higher standard. Or maybe not? After all, the payed Wikipedia editors are to be trusted the least.
1. Re:Slashdot title, here we go again by Andreas+Kolbe · 2014-10-12 05:33 · Score: 1
  
  Oh yes, they do claim that. Jimmy Wales asserts that Wikipedia is "about as accurate as traditional encyclopedias and improving all the time." Really? Really? Really? Really? Really?
Re:Wikishit by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-11 22:00 · Score: 0

Well, you don't mention providing any citations for your claims. Why should anyone believe you? As a matter of fact you are blatantly wrong:

I said the U.S. have no native dogs

Emigrants from Siberia likely crossed the Bering Strait with dogs in their company, and some experts[32] suggest the use of sled dogs may have been critical to the success of the waves that entered North America roughly 12,000 years ago,[32] although the earliest archaeological evidence of dog-like canids in North America dates from about 9,400 years ago.[33][34] Dogs were an important part of life for the Athabascan population in North America, and were their only domesticated animal. Dogs also carried much of the load in the migration of the Apache and Navajo tribes 1,400 years ago. Use of dogs as pack animals in these cultures often persisted after the introduction of the horse to North America.[35]
From Wikipedia, but it's common knowledge and the given citations are solid. The Aztecs had a dog god for fuck's sake.
Children will be children! by iq145 · 2014-10-12 06:21 · Score: 1

Seems to me Wikipedia is edited by children, biased spiteful children. They'll do a "Speedy Deletion" on you if they simply don't like the person or entity you're writing about, despite having valid references and significant information. They themselves also "vandalize" in areas they think most Wikipedia officials may not notice. Wiki claims there are no designated "editors" or "monitors" in the Wikipedia site. But you just try to add a new article or edit an existing one... At least a couple editors (who were watching) will jump all over you, practically call you names, change your article around (a lot), then even threaten you that you'd "better not violate the site's protocol" again or you'll be banned from making contributions. This has happened to me more than once. Note: My contributions were right on point and inoffensive in every way. (Then they dare to ask us for donations!)