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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.'"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I have to agree. The experiment cited modified 30 articles with minor and cleverly-chosen falsehoods, and more than half were fixed within two months.
From that, Kohs then claims, "I think this has proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it's not fair to say Wikipedia is 'self-correcting.'"
Um, WTF? That statement proves he's not very good at making accurate statements. If he added a time period to that, and maybe some disclaimer about the popularity of articles being modified, then it wouldn't be much of a point, but it'd be closer to true.
You conveniently leave out that Kohs himself (that's me) reverted 6 of the false edits himself, when it became clear after more than 45 days that nobody else was likely to do it anytime soon.
You're also being rather unfair to say that Kohs' statement -- a sound-bite that the Washington Post journalist selected from a lengthy telephone interview -- which you then rip away from the context of the article, "proves" that I'm not good at making accurate statements. Why don't you peruse the actual spreadsheet of the 30 articles, which speaks for itself on my ability to convey accurate information?