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How Many Hoaxes Are On Wikipedia? No One Knows
An anonymous reader writes The Washington Post's Caitlin Dewey has written a lengthy feature covering one of Wikipedia's most intractable problems: carefully inserted hoax information that is almost impossible to detect. Dewey's investigation starts with the recent discovery of the nonexistent Australian god "Jar'Edo Wens" (which lasted almost ten years), and discusses a Wikipediocracy post about a recent experiment by critic Greg Kohs, in which 30 articles received cleverly-chosen minor falsehoods. More than half survived for more than two months. Included is also a chart showing that editing participation in Wikipedia has "atrophied" since 2007. It is quite rare to see a feature in a major media outlet as critical as this, of Wikipedia and its little-known internal problems. Especially on the heels of a very favorable CBS 60 Minutes report. As Kohs says, "I think this has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it's not fair to say Wikipedia is 'self-correcting.'"
Woo-hoo! Slashdot beat Wikipedia. Slashdot didn't atrophy until 18 Sept. 2012.
In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Wikipedia has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.
First, it is slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words Don't Panic inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
..."burger flipping ass has just banned you for daring to challenge me, you pompous PhD-wielding expert"...
Burger-flipping and PhD aren't mutually exclusive.
Having worked on this problem for a while, ive found exactly 5 total hoaxes on wikipedia (no more.) Please remove the following articles:
1. Edward Snowden: is not actually a person, this is an old wives tale. E. Snowden is a hybrid cultivar of the genus Aechmea in the Bromeliad family.
2. 9/11: Although commonly thought of as a terrorist attack that claimed the lives of several thousand americans, this too is just a silly rumour. 9/11 is a town and municipality located in the province and autonomous community of Navarre, northern Spain.
3. Barack Obama: This fools several laymen and scholars alike! Obama isnt a president, but was a motor race set to Formula One rules, held on 30 July 1950. The race was won by Argentinean driver Juan Manuel Fangio after a distance of 68 laps.
4. Christmas: Again, not a holiday at all. He was actually a Polish Air Force Captain and Allied double agent during World War II, using the codename Brutus. After having been offered safety by the Germans, he was sent to England as an agent. However, he made himself known to the British authorities. He was de-briefed by the British (MI6) and Polish authorities about the security lapses of his organization in France. And thats why we have Christmas trees today!
5. Computers: could NEVER have been real, and most of us know this one to be true. The computer is actually a Ukrainian professional football coach and a former player. As of 2009, he works as an assistant coach with FC Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Two classics. :)
1.Proof by ghost reference:
Nothing even remotely resembling the cited theorem appears in the reference given.
2. Proof by reference to inaccessible literature:
The author cites a simple corollary of a theorem to be found in a privately circulated memoir of the Slovenian Philological Society, 1883.
*Kid Rock runs for Senate* Democrats: We must run Kid Scissors.