How pranks, hoaxes & manip. undermine the reliability of WP

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:31 am

Stierlitz · Unread post by **Stierlitz** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:13 am

It's funny how the blog comments derailed into crappy Animal Farm references and commie plot jibberjabber.....nobody seems to mention how in physical maps, the publishing companies would put in a fake streets or mislabel roads as copyright protection devices ("trap streets.") All these distortions of reality on Wikipedia are accidental knowledge tests, and the Administration has been failing them.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:52 am

Stierlitz wrote:It's funny how the blog comments derailed into crappy Animal Farm references and commie plot jibberjabber.....nobody seems to mention how in physical maps, the publishing companies would put in a fake streets or mislabel roads as copyright protection devices ("trap streets.") All these distortions of reality on Wikipedia are accidental knowledge tests, and the Administration has been failing them.

I used to have a set of maths tables (logs, trig functions, etc.) which, according to the preface, had some rounding errors in the last digit "as a trap for unwary plagiarists". There's very little demand for maths tables any more of course.

Ming · Unread post by **Ming** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:28 pm

That was, more or less, the undoing of the Gospel of Jesus' Wife fabrication: the various researchers were able to trace it and an accompanying text to specific modern editions. In the case of the GJW text it reproduced an error in a specific on-line edition. Ironically the point in that is that The Cloud, focused on a particular issue, can pick it apart extremely fast. Wikipedia errors tend to be protected by a lack of scrutiny and skepticism.

Triptych · Unread post by **Triptych** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 1:25 pm

I read it, thought it was a pretty good and well organized front-page article, and appreciated the solid and parallel use of the examples.

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 2:20 pm

Ming wrote:Wikipedia errors tend to be protected by a lack of scrutiny and skepticism.

I think you mean "Wikipedia errors tend to be protected by ignorant schmucks."

Neotarf · Unread post by **Neotarf** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:37 pm

One curious example of this involves the article on Bodu Bala Sena, a Buddhist group in Sri Lanka. I started the article as a stub some time ago, and since then it has been a vehicle for some odd manipulation, mostly some variation of various drive-by IPs trying to insert the word "terrorist" into the article. In May 2014, a news aggregator called TRAC scraped entire first two paragraphs of the Wikipedia article and used it verbatim as their take on the organization. At the time of the plagiarism, the article looked something like this. The scraped article was then reinserted into Wikipedia as a source for the "terrorist" claim.

mac · Unread post by **mac** » Mon Jul 21, 2014 9:49 pm

Damn fine work.

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 2:19 am

Reposted on r/wikipedia.

I will bet you $100 that a hardcore insider, most likely Blurasberry or Nihiltres, will show up and try to attack it.

Stierlitz · Unread post by **Stierlitz** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 3:17 am

EricBarbour wrote:Reposted on r/wikipedia.

I will bet you $100 that a hardcore insider, most likely Blurasberry or Nihiltres, will show up and try to attack it.

So far you have this:

Adzmodean 2 points 50 minutes ago

But the main thing is; it was rectified as soon as it was identified.

That still makes it the best, most accessible, adaptable and thorough record of information and knowledge we've ever had.

We're only upright apes; we're never going to get it perfect so all we can do is try.

Adzmodean is a three-year member, has "32,536 comment karma" and "3,070 link karma" so he/she is a middle-of-the-road user.

Captain Occam · Unread post by **Captain Occam** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:27 am

Stierlitz wrote:
EricBarbour wrote:Reposted on r/wikipedia.

I will bet you $100 that a hardcore insider, most likely Blurasberry or Nihiltres, will show up and try to attack it.
So far you have this:
Adzmodean 2 points 50 minutes ago

But the main thing is; it was rectified as soon as it was identified.

That still makes it the best, most accessible, adaptable and thorough record of information and knowledge we've ever had.

We're only upright apes; we're never going to get it perfect so all we can do is try.
Adzmodean is a three-year member, has "32,536 comment karma" and "3,070 link karma" so he/she is a middle-of-the-road user.

I've never understood this attitude of "it's not a problem because the hoaxes were eventually fixed". Do we have any way to know what fraction of the total number of hoaxes at Wikipedia have been identified? Do we even know whether they're being removed at a faster rate than they're being added?

I'm aware of one likely hoax in a Wikipedia article that's been there for approximately five years. I'm not going to say which article, because if I do, someone will fix it and use it as another example of how Wikipedia can improve itself. Maybe I'll point it out to someone after it's been there for fifteen or twenty years, when I can use it as an example of how there's no limit to how long this sort of thing can last.

The Adversary · Unread post by **The Adversary** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 9:19 am

I like the way people have compared using Wikipedia as playing Russian roulette with knowledge.

Most of the time, say 5 out of 6, you can use Wikipedia without any great harm.

But if you "trust" Wikipedia: be prepared for that disastrous sixt bullet; you never know when it will hit you.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 12:46 pm

I've long had a wish to run a contest, where I call for hoaxes to be added to Wikipedia, with the goal of getting long-lasting fiction into high-traffic articles. I'd offer a grand prize to the hoax that lasted at least 3 months and (by some objective standard or algorithm) had the most impact based on a factor of preposterousness times page views. (Page views would be measured prior to the contest, so that entrants couldn't rig their entry by deploying a "refresh page" bot.)

Ming · Unread post by **Ming** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 4:27 pm

lilburne wrote:
Ming wrote:Wikipedia errors tend to be protected by a lack of scrutiny and skepticism.
I think you mean "Wikipedia errors tend to be protected by ignorant schmucks."

No, Ming does not.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Wed Jul 23, 2014 5:50 pm

thekohser wrote:I've long had a wish to run a contest, where I call for hoaxes to be added to Wikipedia, with the goal of getting long-lasting fiction into high-traffic articles. I'd offer a grand prize to the hoax that lasted at least 3 months and (by some objective standard or algorithm) had the most impact based on a factor of preposterousness times page views. (Page views would be measured prior to the contest, so that entrants couldn't rig their entry by deploying a "refresh page" bot.)

There was a professor at George Mason University who did something similar a few years back:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ma ... cal_hoaxes

He got his stuff repeated in "reliable sources", which he seems to have considered the measure of success of his hoax.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Thu Jul 24, 2014 8:17 am

Picked up on Gary N. Curtis' Fallacy Files blog.

lilburne · Unread post by **lilburne** » Thu Jul 24, 2014 1:13 pm

On the reddit thread Anthonyhcole asks

Can you find a diff to support that claim that the WP article pushed the MMR vaccine scare, lilburne?

My response:

Try the 2004 update when ChrisO/Prioryman associated the government response with 'Mad Cow', declared that the NHS couldn't afford single jabs, and implied that Blair's kid hadn't had the MMR.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... id=2502932

You can also see how the article was manipulated to change from:

Since the controversy began, there has been a noticeable increase in the incidence of measles in the [[UK]]
...
In the longer term, however, extensive studies of thousands of children in various parts of the world (studies which are more extensive and detailed than that initially done by Dr. Wakefield's team) have failed to show the link between autism and the MMR vaccine.

to

During the [[1980s]] and [[1990s]], a number of lawsuits were brought in the [[United States]] against manufacturers of vaccines, alleging that the vaccines had caused a variety of physical and mental disorders in children.
...
In September [[1995]], the Legal Aid Board in the [[United Kingdom]] granted a number of families financial assistance to pursue legal claims against the state health authorities and the vaccine's manufacturers, claiming that their children were killed or seriously injured by the MMR vaccine.

All of which were still in the article two years later.

enwikibadscience · Unread post by **enwikibadscience** » Thu Jul 24, 2014 3:30 pm

lilburne wrote:
Ming wrote:Wikipedia errors tend to be protected by a lack of scrutiny and skepticism.
I think you mean "Wikipedia errors tend to be protected by ignorant schmucks."

+1

enwikibadscience · Unread post by **enwikibadscience** » Thu Jul 24, 2014 3:39 pm

This is Wikipedia in a nutshell: genuine research mixed with completely unreliable information in such a way that looking at any Wikipedia article the reader never knows what is correct and what is made up. It’s the fabled wisdom of the crowds!

This is Cwmhiraeth (T-C-L) in a nutshell. Most medical articles on en.Wikipedia in a nutshell. Many ethnic or non-Western articles on en.Wikipedia in a nutshell. No surprise the technical topics picked by the ignorant accolade chasers on en.Wikipdia. No surprise kids added an Arab name to an article on a South Asian dish, and en.Wikipedia editors highlighted and promoted the hoax, citing it to a blog. No surprise an article on hair straightener was hoaxed.

Crowd sourcing technical topics to ignoramuses gets you crowd-sourced crap.

Johnny Au · Unread post by **Johnny Au** » Thu Jul 24, 2014 6:00 pm

enwikibadscience wrote:
This is Wikipedia in a nutshell: genuine research mixed with completely unreliable information in such a way that looking at any Wikipedia article the reader never knows what is correct and what is made up. It’s the fabled wisdom of the crowds!
This is Cwmhiraeth (T-C-L) in a nutshell. Most medical articles on en.Wikipedia in a nutshell. Many ethnic or non-Western articles on en.Wikipedia in a nutshell. No surprise the technical topics picked by the ignorant accolade chasers on en.Wikipdia. No surprise kids added an Arab name to an article on a South Asian dish, and en.Wikipedia editors highlighted and promoted the hoax, citing it to a blog. No surprise an article on hair straightener was hoaxed.

Crowd sourcing technical topics to ignoramuses gets you crowd-sourced crap.

Never forget the Bicholim conflict being added to history textbooks. Oh, and Nintendo is unhappy with Olimar the Wondercat.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:45 am

In a remarkable coincidence, the YouTube video with Jimmy Wales defending Essjay has been pulled from YouTube since the publication of this blog post.

This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.

Sorry about that.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 11:14 am

HRIP7 wrote:In a remarkable coincidence, the YouTube video with Jimmy Wales defending Essjay has been pulled from YouTube since the publication of this blog post.
This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.

Sorry about that.

Do you remember who was the YouTube user hosting the video? Was it the producer of the film "Truth In Numbers"?

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 12:58 pm

thekohser wrote:Do you remember who was the YouTube user hosting the video? Was it the producer of the film "Truth In Numbers"?

Terry Cupp. Currently still in Bing cache (not in Google cache, though).

As far as I can see, there is no one of that name who had any involvement in making the documentary, and he probably had no right to post it on YouTube.

This account has been suspended due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube's policy against spam, gaming, misleading content, or other Terms of Service violations.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 1:18 pm

We now have the following Editor's Note at the bottom of the blog post:

Editor’s Note (July 25, 2014): Shortly after publication of this blog post, the “Truth in Numbers” video containing the quoted Jimmy Wales interview was pulled from YouTube. At the time of writing, the video is still available at The Huffington Post for internet users in the US. For internet users elsewhere, the best we can offer is the Russian version of the film (with Russian voiceover added), currently available on YouTube, Vimeo and the Russian DailyTV platform. The relevant time code is around 15:00.

I'd assume the HuffPost copy is legit. The Russian copy looks like it is legit too. (The YouTube upload is by the company itself.)

I'm beginning to wonder whether this worthy documentary may have been seen by more people in Russia than in the US ...

enwikibadscience · Unread post by **enwikibadscience** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 2:04 pm

Johnny Au wrote:
enwikibadscience wrote:
This is Wikipedia in a nutshell: genuine research mixed with completely unreliable information in such a way that looking at any Wikipedia article the reader never knows what is correct and what is made up. It’s the fabled wisdom of the crowds!
This is Cwmhiraeth (T-C-L) in a nutshell. Most medical articles on en.Wikipedia in a nutshell. Many ethnic or non-Western articles on en.Wikipedia in a nutshell. No surprise the technical topics picked by the ignorant accolade chasers on en.Wikipdia. No surprise kids added an Arab name to an article on a South Asian dish, and en.Wikipedia editors highlighted and promoted the hoax, citing it to a blog. No surprise an article on hair straightener was hoaxed.

Crowd sourcing technical topics to ignoramuses gets you crowd-sourced crap.
Never forget the Bicholim conflict being added to history textbooks. Oh, and Nintendo is unhappy with Olimar the Wondercat.

What about Olimar? Is the GA nomination still available for Bicholim? Casliber thought I looked good for FA--nice when a hoaxer writes well.

The hoaxer also, in less than twenty minutes read and certified this Good Article: Huế Phật Đản shootings (T-H-L).

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Fri Jul 25, 2014 9:29 pm

the video is still available at The Huffington Post for internet users in the US. For internet users elsewhere, the best we can offer is the Russian version of the film

And people complain that BBC programmes aren't available in the US. Evidently, American sites are just as awkward.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Sun Jul 27, 2014 11:07 am

Picked up by Brazilian tech blog MeioBit (Alexa-ranked #1,032 in Brazil)

J. Noronha, MeioBit, 25 July 2014: Você pode confiar na Wikipédia? Spoiler: não

Google translation: link

Can you trust Wikipedia? Spoiler: no

Long ago, when I was a physics teacher in a galaxy far away, I was taking a look at the work of a group of biology students would deliver to the teacher of the next class.

It was a work on AIDS and started reading, scaring me every paragraph. They simply used the good old CTRL + C CTRL + V in any Wikipedia page. The problem is that the page was about some obscure group which argued that AIDS does not exist and is caused by drugs used to treat it.

Of course, students did not have mental capacity to realize this and copied everything from the paragraph that began to explain what the disease according to the shadowy group.

If the problem were just lazy students, less evil, but Wikipedia, in collaborative feature, is a recipe for those who want to screw the unsuspecting and as the subject, even if only an expert in the area to detect what is true or not.

One of many examples came to light this week, when a Reddit user posted the image below: [...]

Mancunium · Unread post by **Mancunium** » Sat Aug 02, 2014 10:25 pm

Here is why you shouldn’t follow the information of Wikipedia blindly!
Daily Bhaskar, 2 August 2014 link

New Delhi: The reliability on the various information sources on internet is escalating with each passing day even though these sources are not hundred per cent reliable. In a recent research it has been found that some pranksters tend to take their pranks to much higher level and change the information on the popular webpage Wikipedia. Wikipedia is widely known for providing information almost about everything and the revelation of the research is an evidence to prove that it must not be trusted blindly. With the pattern of letting its users edit the articles information, its image is badly being ruined by those who relish playing pranks without giving much thought to the consequences.

The report published in the wikipediocracy [link] claims that it has happened several times in history that the information is tampered with and then the false one become popular with people. An example in the article cited that a group of students wanted to tease one of their classmates named Azid. In order to play a prank on him, they edited the Chicken Korma Wikipedia page and added that Azid is synonym of the dish. The false information didn’t only continue to run on Wikipedia for some time, but several cooking websites and publications also adopted the name without digging out the proper information.

Today’s generation is so blind folded with the idea of internet that they hardly re-check any piece of information that has been delivered to them through internet. Even though the Wikipedia has taken down the term and there are no traces of it on the page, it can easily be found on other cooking related pages where Korma is also being referred as Azid. [...] The Azid example is not the only one. It has happened number of times and each time it took long for people to recognize the fact that they are poured wrong information. [...]

Note that now it is "the" Wikipediocracy, just like "the" Wikipedia.

Johnny Au · Unread post by **Johnny Au** » Sun Aug 03, 2014 12:16 am

At least Azid does not refer to chicken korma in Wiktionary. It means acid in German, but one's liver in Navajo.

Unread post by **Zoloft** » Sun Aug 03, 2014 1:56 am

Most pitiful reference: Someone wrote a song.
Caution: it autoplays.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Sun Aug 03, 2014 10:31 am

Johnny Au wrote:At least Azid does not refer to chicken korma in Wiktionary. It means acid in German, but one's liver in Navajo.

Speaking of German, the German Wikipedia article on Korma dishes had the Azid hoax in it for almost a year. The English article was translated in late August 2013, with the hoax in place; all the references to "Azid" were removed on 17 July 2014.

Newyorkbrad · Unread post by **Newyorkbrad** » Fri Aug 08, 2014 1:39 am

Since no one seems to have noticed: I cited this blog post in my book review in the "Signpost" last week.

Unread post by **HRIP7** » Fri Aug 08, 2014 1:44 am

Newyorkbrad wrote:Since no one seems to have noticed: I cited this blog post in my book review in the "Signpost" last week.

I did notice. Thanks. (Good review, too.)

Are you still doing the presentation on the state of the BLP problem at Wikimania? Last I looked, it had been taken out of the programme. That was one of the few I had looked forward to attending.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Fri Aug 08, 2014 11:37 am

HRIP7 wrote:Are you still doing the presentation on the state of the BLP problem at Wikimania? Last I looked, it had been taken out of the programme. That was one of the few I had looked forward to attending.

I hope that it wasn't dropped because someone discovered that NYB is a contributor here!

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Fri Aug 08, 2014 3:28 pm

Poetlister wrote:
HRIP7 wrote:Are you still doing the presentation on the state of the BLP problem at Wikimania? Last I looked, it had been taken out of the programme. That was one of the few I had looked forward to attending.
I hope that it wasn't dropped because someone discovered that NYB is a contributor here!

I know that I wouldn't feel like I was in a "Friendly Space" in the same room as Newyorkbrad, who delivered a message that deprived me of rightful income, without any explanation.

Captain Occam · Unread post by **Captain Occam** » Mon Aug 11, 2014 9:20 pm

Here's a brand-new example of Wikipedia vandalism that's made its way into an academic blog: http://theunsilencedscience.blogspot.co ... posed.html

On March 22nd an IP subtly vandalized the Monoamine oxidase A (T-H-L) article, changing the numbers to misrepresent the source that's being cited. The vandalism went unnoticed for about four months. Then on July 31st, the medical anthropologist Alondra Oubré (T-H-L) repeated the fake numbers in a scientific blog, without mentioning that she had copied them from Wikipedia and that she hadn't checked the original source.

The vandalism in the Wikipedia article was fixed five days ago, but the fake numbers continue to exist in the blog article, even now that the both the author of the article and the editor of the blog have been made aware that these numbers originated from Wikipedia vandalism. The owner of the blog is Massimo Pigliucci (T-H-L), a fairly well-known academic.

This isn't the first time that vandalism or hoaxes originating at Wikipedia have found their way into scientific articles. But have there been any other cases where a well-known academic was aware that an article at their website was repeating hoax content from Wikipedia, yet was unwilling to correct it?

eagle · Unread post by **eagle** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 2:33 pm

August 4:

Alondra Oubré wrote:By the way, I did not use Wikipedia for this article.

August 6:

Alondra Oubré wrote:First, I see that you are right about the MAOA-2R frequencies I listed as having come from Wikipedia. I unknowingly did use numbers that were excerpted from Wikipedia. I added numbers that I had collected before I started writing this paper. The numbers were included in notes that were only partially referenced.

Very odd reversal of position by the blog post author.

Unread post by **Zoloft** » Mon Aug 18, 2014 6:34 pm

eagle wrote:August 4:
Alondra Oubré wrote:By the way, I did not use Wikipedia for this article.
August 6:
Alondra Oubré wrote:First, I see that you are right about the MAOA-2R frequencies I listed as having come from Wikipedia. I unknowingly did use numbers that were excerpted from Wikipedia. I added numbers that I had collected before I started writing this paper. The numbers were included in notes that were only partially referenced.
Very odd reversal of position by the blog post author.

Honesty is refreshing and rare enough.

Captain Occam · Unread post by **Captain Occam** » Tue Aug 19, 2014 11:26 am

Zoloft wrote:
eagle wrote:August 4:
Alondra Oubré wrote:By the way, I did not use Wikipedia for this article.
August 6:
Alondra Oubré wrote:First, I see that you are right about the MAOA-2R frequencies I listed as having come from Wikipedia. I unknowingly did use numbers that were excerpted from Wikipedia. I added numbers that I had collected before I started writing this paper. The numbers were included in notes that were only partially referenced.
Very odd reversal of position by the blog post author.
Honesty is refreshing and rare enough.

If she's willing to admit she got the numbers from Wikipedia vandalism, you'd think it wouldn't be difficult for her to edit her article so that it uses the non-vandalized numbers, or for her to make a new post with a correction. As far as I can tell, the only place she's admitted to doing this is far down in the comments to someone else's blog, and most people who read her article aren't going to be looking there.

Do you think she's too embarrassed to acknowledge having done this in a place where more people will see it? If she were to quietly edit her article to replace the fake numbers with the real ones, I doubt many people would notice who weren't specifically paying attention.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 8:22 pm

Jimbo discovered this howler today.

Ten page views per day, for years.

If Randy from Boise is wondering who's building his always-improving encyclopedia, it's folks like this.

Poetlister · Unread post by **Poetlister** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:15 pm

thekohser wrote:Jimbo discovered this howler today.

Ten page views per day, for years.

If Randy from Boise is wondering who's building his always-improving encyclopedia, it's folks like this.

Note that the edit summary for this addition was "grammar"!

Unread post by **Zoloft** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 9:31 pm

more goofball content from the same editor...

EricBarbour · Unread post by **EricBarbour** » Mon Sep 15, 2014 10:01 pm

Zoloft wrote:more goofball content from the same editor...

I wonder if Kriesi (T-H-L) is a friend of his.

There's quite a few questionable things in Meishern's history. Try this one.

Vejvančický · Unread post by **Vejvančický** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 7:28 am

Jar'Edo Wens (T-H-L) (or Jared Owens), an aboriginal god of earthly knowledge and physical might since May 2005?

Mason · Unread post by **Mason** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 7:43 am

Vejvančický wrote:Jar'Edo Wens (T-H-L) (or Jared Owens), an aboriginal god of earthly knowledge and physical might since May 2005?

Also available en français, I see.

And tended on Wikidata by Dutch robots.

Vejvančický · Unread post by **Vejvančický** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 9:14 am

Looks like the oldest hoax ever (by length of existence), see Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia (T-H-L). 9 years, 9 months.

Anthonyhcole · Unread post by **Anthonyhcole** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 10:11 am

Jim · Unread post by **Jim** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 10:34 am

Anthonyhcole wrote:Gone

Here's an archive, via Google cache, for anyone who missed it: https://archive.today/kivJU

The entire article was:

In Australian aboriginal mythology, Jar'Edo Wens is a god of earthly knowledge and physical might, created by Altjira to ensure that people did not get too arrogant or self-conceited. He is associated with victory and intelligence.

AFD here.

thekohser · Unread post by **thekohser** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 1:09 pm

Article seems to have gotten about 160 page views per month, on average. So, over 18,000 souls perhaps fooled by Wikipedia's "knowledge".

Jim · Unread post by **Jim** » Tue Mar 03, 2015 3:52 pm

thekohser wrote:Article seems to have gotten about 160 page views per month, on average. So, over 18,000 souls perhaps fooled by Wikipedia's "knowledge".

Don't forget the readers of the many "mirrors" which have scraped the "information" over 10 years, and which now appear in a Google search for the term.