6 ms·

Wikipedia was the original fake news. For instance, someone might edit an article to say that a person was a known political extremist. Someone else might write

Wikipedia was the original fake news. For instance, someone might edit an article to say that a person was a known political extremist. Someone else might write an article (not on Wikipedia) saying the same thing (after having read the Wikipedia article). Years later, if the information is questioned on Wikipedia, then editors will add a reference to the off-wiki article, and everyone will be happy. Circular fake news, with truth going down the plughole. The entropic heat death of information. I've looked at large articles I contributed to a few years ago and they are now disasters. Full of bowdlerisation, inconsistent style, and false snippets of information. I think the abusive nature of many Wikipedia admins, and the hostility of Wikipedia itself to knowledge, will eventually just make it a 4chan with pretentions.

maxerickson 10y ago
This criticism would be more useful with concrete examples.
- mmphosis 10y ago
  The concrete examples have been deleted.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Which means things work as they're supposed to, doesn't it?
    - PDoyle 10y ago
      No, obviously it does not mean that. That known flaws have been fixed says nothing about the prevalence of unknown flaws.
    - TuringTest 10y ago
      The "consoles generations" articles have certainly not been fixed.
  - macobo 10y ago
    But you just said this: > I've looked at large articles I contributed to a few years ago and they are now disasters. Examples would be welcome.
    - maxerickson 10y ago
      I think mmphosis was being tongue in cheek given the article being discussed. In any case, they didn't make the claim about disaster articles.
- makomk 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_... Note that of course, like everything on Wikipedia this is probably neither complete nor necessarily accurate.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    To the extent that it is complete, that list counters the criticism made. Incidents that have been documented and dealt with aren't an example of bad information existing forever. It's also a pretty short list.
    - makomk 10y ago
      By definition, we don't know about the incidents that have not yet been detected and once we find out about them they're no longer undetected and so don't qualify as proof under your standard. Also, there are several entries on the list that hung around for 6-8 years and made their way into publications like scientific journals, books, and obituaries that are effectively going to be around forever. One particularly embarrassing example on the list involved a real person being falsely accused of taking part in a major points shaving scandal in college despite not even being on the team at the time, with multiple major publications repeating the claim. It was only discovered after 6 years or so because a film reviewer got an email claiming he was omitted from a film about the scandal because he wasn't even on the team, and believed that person enough to start digging despite all the coverage insisting otherwise: http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/guilt-wikipedia-joe-streater-became-falsely-attached-boston-college-point-shaving-scandal.html http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/guilt-wikipedia-joe-streater...
  - yellowapple 10y ago
    I had no idea the game console "generation" counting was a result of citogenesis. The more you know...
- gydfi 10y ago
  Pepe the Frog would be a good example. At some point the Clinton campaign sent out a press release claiming that the silly green frog was a "white supremacist symbol", in an attempt to tar Trump supporters, who had been extensively using the frog, by association. Within an hour or two, Pepe's Wikipedia page had been edited and locked to make the "white supremacist" claim. Journalists researching Pepe came along and confirmed via Wikipedia that he was indeed a white supremacist symbol, and boom, now you've got hundreds of citeable articles making the same claim.
MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
Since the election I've seen pretty much every major news and reference information source disparaged as "fake news" by comments like this. It begs the question: if every major source is untrustworthy, if it's all a chain of lies all the way down, how does anyone know anything? Can those who have seen the light please point the rest of us to the untainted source of pure truth you've cross referenced against to confirm this? It seems like there are plenty of people in the world who manage to act productively on the information they have, but maybe it's all just a big conspiracy - nobody has ever known a single fact.
- gukov 10y ago
  Everything becomes much clearer once you realize that everyone is for themselves, and that includes mass media who report stuff in a way that increases the clicks and the views. The majority of us have been conditioned to worry, actually worry, about stuff that we have absolutely no control nor expert knowledge. The majority of our time should be spent on worrying about ourselves, our immediate circle of people, our neighborhood, city, country, planet. In that order. Turn on the TV or open your facebook and you'll that the hierarchy is completely reversed.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    Interesting ego trap you've fallen into there.
  - quanticle 10y ago
    The majority of our time should be spent on worrying about ourselves, our immediate circle of people, our neighborhood, city, country, planet. In that order. In response, I'm just going to quote Martin Niemoller: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. Your approach rules out collective action on any kind of scale that can change the direction of a nation. There are always concerns at the family and local levels. What we need to understand is that sometimes concerns at the larger levels (country, planet) that outweigh our local concerns.
VLM 10y ago
That statement is somewhat insulting to 4chan, on 4chan content is impartially wiped when it ages off the bottom. Unlike wikipedia nobody on 4chan is getting a psychosexual rush of power when destroying other peoples hard fought content to make them feel unwanted and sad. I would encourage people who are bullied off wikipedia to visit 4chan which is a friendler more open minded and inclusive group of people. Even when including /pol/, 4chan is still a nicer community than wikipedia.
- cooper12 10y ago
  Wew lad.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
JdeBP 10y ago
I hit this over a decade ago. * http://jdebp.eu./FGA/legacy-encoding-has-no-definition.html http://jdebp.eu./FGA/legacy-encoding-has-no-definition.html

maxerickson 10y ago

This criticism would be more useful with concrete examples.

mmphosis 10y ago
The concrete examples have been deleted.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Which means things work as they're supposed to, doesn't it?
  - PDoyle 10y ago
    No, obviously it does not mean that. That known flaws have been fixed says nothing about the prevalence of unknown flaws.
  - TuringTest 10y ago
    The "consoles generations" articles have certainly not been fixed.
- macobo 10y ago
  But you just said this: > I've looked at large articles I contributed to a few years ago and they are now disasters. Examples would be welcome.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    I think mmphosis was being tongue in cheek given the article being discussed. In any case, they didn't make the claim about disaster articles.
makomk 10y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_incidents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_citogenesis_... Note that of course, like everything on Wikipedia this is probably neither complete nor necessarily accurate.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  To the extent that it is complete, that list counters the criticism made. Incidents that have been documented and dealt with aren't an example of bad information existing forever. It's also a pretty short list.
  - makomk 10y ago
    By definition, we don't know about the incidents that have not yet been detected and once we find out about them they're no longer undetected and so don't qualify as proof under your standard. Also, there are several entries on the list that hung around for 6-8 years and made their way into publications like scientific journals, books, and obituaries that are effectively going to be around forever. One particularly embarrassing example on the list involved a real person being falsely accused of taking part in a major points shaving scandal in college despite not even being on the team at the time, with multiple major publications repeating the claim. It was only discovered after 6 years or so because a film reviewer got an email claiming he was omitted from a film about the scandal because he wasn't even on the team, and believed that person enough to start digging despite all the coverage insisting otherwise: http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/guilt-wikipedia-joe-streater-became-falsely-attached-boston-college-point-shaving-scandal.html http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/guilt-wikipedia-joe-streater...
- yellowapple 10y ago
  I had no idea the game console "generation" counting was a result of citogenesis. The more you know...
gydfi 10y ago
Pepe the Frog would be a good example. At some point the Clinton campaign sent out a press release claiming that the silly green frog was a "white supremacist symbol", in an attempt to tar Trump supporters, who had been extensively using the frog, by association. Within an hour or two, Pepe's Wikipedia page had been edited and locked to make the "white supremacist" claim. Journalists researching Pepe came along and confirmed via Wikipedia that he was indeed a white supremacist symbol, and boom, now you've got hundreds of citeable articles making the same claim.

MaxfordAndSons 10y ago

Since the election I've seen pretty much every major news and reference information source disparaged as "fake news" by comments like this. It begs the question: if every major source is untrustworthy, if it's all a chain of lies all the way down, how does anyone know anything? Can those who have seen the light please point the rest of us to the untainted source of pure truth you've cross referenced against to confirm this? It seems like there are plenty of people in the world who manage to act productively on the information they have, but maybe it's all just a big conspiracy - nobody has ever known a single fact.

gukov 10y ago
Everything becomes much clearer once you realize that everyone is for themselves, and that includes mass media who report stuff in a way that increases the clicks and the views. The majority of us have been conditioned to worry, actually worry, about stuff that we have absolutely no control nor expert knowledge. The majority of our time should be spent on worrying about ourselves, our immediate circle of people, our neighborhood, city, country, planet. In that order. Turn on the TV or open your facebook and you'll that the hierarchy is completely reversed.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
  Interesting ego trap you've fallen into there.
- quanticle 10y ago
  The majority of our time should be spent on worrying about ourselves, our immediate circle of people, our neighborhood, city, country, planet. In that order. In response, I'm just going to quote Martin Niemoller: First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. Your approach rules out collective action on any kind of scale that can change the direction of a nation. There are always concerns at the family and local levels. What we need to understand is that sometimes concerns at the larger levels (country, planet) that outweigh our local concerns.

VLM 10y ago

That statement is somewhat insulting to 4chan, on 4chan content is impartially wiped when it ages off the bottom. Unlike wikipedia nobody on 4chan is getting a psychosexual rush of power when destroying other peoples hard fought content to make them feel unwanted and sad. I would encourage people who are bullied off wikipedia to visit 4chan which is a friendler more open minded and inclusive group of people. Even when including /pol/, 4chan is still a nicer community than wikipedia.

cooper12 10y ago
Wew lad.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

JdeBP 10y ago

I hit this over a decade ago. * http://jdebp.eu./FGA/legacy-encoding-has-no-definition.html http://jdebp.eu./FGA/legacy-encoding-has-no-definition.html