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Yes, I can relate to that but I think the quaint imagery of a village green does not nearly capture the insiduousness of this. He enourages his students to do t

Yes, I can relate to that but I think the quaint imagery of a village green does not nearly capture the insiduousness of this. He enourages his students to do their best to make the hoax work. Deleting the lies later, while laudable, does not undo the real (intended?) damage to the reputation of the internet. I really struggle to think of positive educational outcomes from teaching students to pull off successful disinformation exploits.

Joeboy 14y ago
> Deleting the lies later, while laudable, does not undo the real (intended?) damage to the reputation of the internet Your problem is that people might start to mistrust things they read on the internet? That's surely the opposite of a problem.
- SagelyGuru 14y ago
  Yes, call me old-fashioned but I just don't like the idea of the internet becoming totally discredited and useless.
  - pyre 14y ago
    You're setting up a false dichotomy. You seem to feel that either the Internet is a place that is 100% trust-worthy (so much so that you can take off your critical-thinking cap), or it's a place where everything is a lie. The point here is that people should learn that they can't blindly believe things just because they read it on the web, not that lies on the web will render it completely useless.
- andreasvc 14y ago
  I suspect this professor is one of those people with an axe to grind against Wikipedia and other resources for not being trustworthy enough. Problem is, these kind of tactics would apply to old-fashioned print publications just as well. In the end it all comes down to a matter of trust: the reader has to trust a publication, the publisher has to trust an author, &c. Teaching people to violate that trust can only do harm. His exercises are probably more exciting and sensational this way, but if you ask me it would be more constructive & useful if he asked students to track down and correct surprising inaccuracies for example.
DanBC 14y ago
From the article: > There's also an interesting coda to this convoluted tale. The group researching Brown's Brewery discovered that the placard in front of the Star-Spangled Banner at the National Museum of American History lists an anachronistic name for the building in which it was sewn. They have written to the museum to correct the mistake.

Joeboy 14y ago

> Deleting the lies later, while laudable, does not undo the real (intended?) damage to the reputation of the internet Your problem is that people might start to mistrust things they read on the internet? That's surely the opposite of a problem.

SagelyGuru 14y ago
Yes, call me old-fashioned but I just don't like the idea of the internet becoming totally discredited and useless.
- pyre 14y ago
  You're setting up a false dichotomy. You seem to feel that either the Internet is a place that is 100% trust-worthy (so much so that you can take off your critical-thinking cap), or it's a place where everything is a lie. The point here is that people should learn that they can't blindly believe things just because they read it on the web, not that lies on the web will render it completely useless.
andreasvc 14y ago
I suspect this professor is one of those people with an axe to grind against Wikipedia and other resources for not being trustworthy enough. Problem is, these kind of tactics would apply to old-fashioned print publications just as well. In the end it all comes down to a matter of trust: the reader has to trust a publication, the publisher has to trust an author, &c. Teaching people to violate that trust can only do harm. His exercises are probably more exciting and sensational this way, but if you ask me it would be more constructive & useful if he asked students to track down and correct surprising inaccuracies for example.

DanBC 14y ago

From the article: > There's also an interesting coda to this convoluted tale. The group researching Brown's Brewery discovered that the placard in front of the Star-Spangled Banner at the National Museum of American History lists an anachronistic name for the building in which it was sewn. They have written to the museum to correct the mistake.