How to (try to) lie with Wikipedia

[HRIP7]

How to (try to) Lie With Wikipedia The manufactured history of neckbeard-shaming

Neckbeards. A fashion choice. An internet insult. Has the term been used as a pejorative since Colonial times? The internet says so. I looked into it.

[...]

Louisa May Alcott reportedly mentioned to Emerson that Thoreau’s neckbeard “will most assuredly deflect amorous advances and preserve the man’s virtue in perpetuity.”

Oh snap! Really? Neckbeards historically recognized as active lady-repellent. I never knew!

The somewhat-random blog where the quotation was from cited the Wikipedia article on Henry David Thoreau.

[...]

The answer, as they say, might surprise you: no. Didn’t happen. Made up. Wikipedia’s record has been corrected, the secondary Wikipedia-citers’ have not.

[...]

Amusingly, a search for Google books for “neck beard” turns up Walden by Thoreau, quite possibly because the Wikipedia page originally contained that fake quote.

[...]

[DanMurphy]

I spend a lot of time in the Sacramento area and have long heard natives describe the clannish community of Bartlett pear growers that has been in the delta for over a century as "Courtland neckbeards."

From the linked article:

The neckbeard quotation originally found there, had been added in 2007 and removed in 2014. During those seven years it zipped around the internet with a veneer of authenticity, getting cited as fact everywhere: XOXO talks; Medium articles; quizbowl questions; Louisa May Alcott tumblblogs. This is a true fact about neckbeard history, a quote from a woman of some reknown. Perhaps.

Vandalism is almost immediately recognized and removed!

Wikipedia's article on Thoreau is the top search hit for his name and averages over 50,000 reads a month.

[Hex]

From the linked article:

The neckbeard quotation originally found there, had been added in 2007 and removed in 2014. During those seven years it zipped around the internet with a veneer of authenticity, getting cited as fact everywhere: XOXO talks; Medium articles; quizbowl questions; Louisa May Alcott tumblblogs. This is a true fact about neckbeard history, a quote from a woman of some reknown. Perhaps.

Vandalism is almost immediately recognized and removed!

Not quite.

Actually, four months after the vandal inserted it into the article, he changed his mind. He took it out... whereupon it was promptly put back by a Wikipedian because it was "referenced". TheOldJacobite (T-C-L), take a bow: all of those years of this lie zipping around the internet are directly attributable to you.

[DanMurphy]

Wonderful.

Rv; the information is referenced; if you say it's wrong, prove it.

[thekohser]

I think we need to start a movement of editors who promise to add one of these such pieces of misinformation to a different Wikipedia article, every day, for a year. We'll call it The Year of Teaching the Public Not to Trust Wikipedia.

[HRIP7]

The citation was added by 71.234.214.246 (T-C-L) (Comcast, Colchester, Connecticut) here.

This was followed by an edit from Bikeable (T-C-L): "thank you for adding citation; removed "die a virgin" line as uncited/unprovable".

Ladies and gentlemen, free knowledge creation in action.

[Hex]

The citation was added by 71.234.214.246 (T-C-L) (Comcast, Colchester, Connecticut) here.

That was probably the vandal (Cyclo1964 (T-C-L)) checking back in later to see if it had stuck, and forgetting to log in.

This was followed by an edit from Bikeable (T-C-L): "thank you for adding citation; removed "die a virgin" line as uncited/unprovable".

Whose user page notes that "I am one of these people who uses WP as a resource far more than they contribute."

First edit in 2005 was to an AfD. Vanished between October 2008 and October 2012. You have to wonder about that.

[HRIP7]

The citation was added by 71.234.214.246 (T-C-L) (Comcast, Colchester, Connecticut) here.

That was probably the vandal (Cyclo1964 (T-C-L)) checking back in later to see if it had stuck, and forgetting to log in.

Quite likely. 21 minutes later, Cyclo1964 (T-C-L) then changed the editor's name, Gilman, to Colman.

It stayed like that until at least 2009; someone then must have corrected the name – obviously without noticing that neither the source nor the passage had any business being in the article.

[EricBarbour]

I think we need to start a movement of editors who promise to add one of these such pieces of misinformation to a different Wikipedia article, every day, for a year. We'll call it The Year of Teaching the Public Not to Trust Wikipedia.

Okay, but first I'd like to see a movement dedicated to showing that Jessamyn West wrote her own Wikipedia biography, with the assistance of other Metafilter users....

[thekohser]

I think we need to start a movement of editors who promise to add one of these such pieces of misinformation to a different Wikipedia article, every day, for a year. We'll call it The Year of Teaching the Public Not to Trust Wikipedia.

Okay, but first I'd like to see a movement dedicated to showing that Jessamyn West wrote her own Wikipedia biography, with the assistance of other Metafilter users....

We already know that. In 2005, that was hardly a big deal.