4 ms·
A core feature of wikipedia is "no original research". It doesn't matter whether you think these occupations are obsolete or not. It only matters if someone els
by DanBC 7y ago
A core feature of wikipedia is "no original research". It doesn't matter whether you think these occupations are obsolete or not. It only matters if someone else thought it, and wrote it down, and then got it published in a reliable source. At that point a wikipedia editor can add the occupation to the list.
It's a bizarre system because there are large cultural around fact-checking in different media in different countries, so there's a load of opinion that's now in Wikipedia because it got published somewhere else.
- ghaff 7y agoOne of the ironies of Wikipedia is that concepts like "notability" and "no original research" tend to be adjudicated, in no small part when they are, by publication in non-digital form. (Which, I assume, no one actually physically checks much of the time.)
- colejohnson66 7y agoThis has always made me wonder: could one make up fake quotes and “cite” them out of an old book?
- ghaff 7y agoSure. And I assume that, at least so long as the claim/quote wasn't too outrageous, you'd probably get away with it.
- Geimfari 7y agoAbsolutely. You could even add fake citations to online newspapers – the odds of someone checking are very low, and I continually stumble upon either blatant fabrications or misunderstandings that have stood there "sourced" for years on high-traffic articles.
- beckingz 7y agoJust create a citation loop and create facts from nowhere!
- sobani 7y agoEven better: I remember there being a Wikipedia edit on some German person's name, that was copied by a newspaper and then that name in the newspaper was cited as a justification to not fix the name back. It might be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg, but I can't find any references about Wikipedia not correcting the name.
- shoeffner 7y agoYes, it was him, someone added an additional "Wilhelm" [0] and it was copied by many newspapers [1]. The Bild wrote (translation mine): "Do we have to remember this name?" [2], and some anonymous guest author on the blog claims to be responsible [2]. In 2016 the name was edited in for about 2 minutes [3], referencing a source from 2012. However, I do not recall it being a big issue to remove that additional name again – but it was more than 10 years ago. It did, however, draw some criticism to German journalism. [0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_Freiherr_von_und_zu_Guttenberg&diff=56419545&oldid=56418683 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_Frei... [1]: https://bildblog.de/5731/wilhelm-ii/ https://bildblog.de/5731/wilhelm-ii/ lists a few of those newspapers [2]: https://bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-wilhelm-machte/ https://bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-... [3]: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg&oldid=155853227 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_zu_G...
- shoeffner 7y agoSome people tried way more sophisticated hoaxes: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-the-professor-who-fooled-wikipedia-got-caught-by-reddit/257134/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/05/how-t...
- falcor84 7y agoOf course, this is the will known process of citogenesis[0] (coined by Randall Monroe on xkcd), itself well documented on Wikipedia[1]. [0] https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reporting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reporting