It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => Media Bias/Media War => Topic started by: Glock32 on July 31, 2014, 10:58:41 PM
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H/T: Small Dead Animals (http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/honey-i-finishe-287.html)
File this one under "journalists are your intellectual betters". In 2009 a couple of college sophomores, enjoying the effects of Cannabis sativa, decided to make absurd edits to the Wikipedia articles about various authors of children's books. They did this as a form of amusement, the sort of thing that stoned college students would find funny at the moment.
Fast forward 5 years, and one of the former students comes across tweets from the NewYorker.com regarding one of these authors. The tweet quotes their half-baked edit to Wikipedia, which has survived these 5 years without being challenged or removed. Interest piqued, further searching on Google reveals numerous other sources breathlessly quoting the same thing. Not once did any of these journalists or academics recognize the information as fraudulent, or even find it unfounded enough to warrant further checking.
And you know what? This isn't just an isolated example where the smart set got taken in by some otherwise plausible sounding information. These people, who presume themselves qualified to set the narrative and define the bounds of public debate, are forever credulous of "right sounding" misinformation. Let it be a reminder that they're not smarter or more cultured, they just think they are.
http://www.dailydot.com/lol/amelia-bedelia-wikipedia-hoax/ (http://www.dailydot.com/lol/amelia-bedelia-wikipedia-hoax/)
It was the kind of ridiculous, vaguely humorous prank stoned college students pull, without any expectation that anyone would ever take it seriously. “I feel like we sort of did it with the intention of seeing how fast it would take to get it taken down” by Wikipedia’s legion of editors, Evan says.
But apparently, it hadn’t been taken down at all. There it was, five and a half years later, being tweeted as fact by relatively well-known members of the New York City media establishment. And a quick search of “Amelia Bedelia Cameroon” proved that Kang and Wikipedia weren’t the only ones taken in by the joke:
The “Amelia Bedelia was a maid in Cameroon” factoid had been cited in a lesson plan by a Taiwanese English professor. It was cited in a book about Jews and Jesus. It was cited in innumerable blog posts and book reports, as well as a piece by blogger Hanny Hernandez, who speculated that Amelia Bedelia’s tendency toward malapropisms was inspired by Parish’s experiences in Cameroon, as “several messages can be misinterpreted between a Cameroonian maid who is serving an American family.” One blogger even speculated that Amelia Bedelia wasn’t a maid, but a slave.
It was cited in the Amelia Bedelia entry on the website TV Tropes and Idioms, and Peggy Parish’s Find-A-Grave page. It was even cited by Mr. Amelia Bedelia himself: Herman Parish, Peggy’s nephew and author of the books after his aunt passed away in 1988, who apparently told a reporter from the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier that his aunt based “the lead character on a French colonial maid in Cameroon.”
I was stunned. How did a joke we made up about Amelia Bedelia while we were stoned get repeated all over the Internet for more than five years, by blogs and reporters and elementary school students and even the author of Amelia Bedelia himself? Did Evan and I inadvertently start a giant Wikipedia hoax about an obscure children’s book author?
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Reminds me of "The Dictionary Game" where you pick an obscure word from the dictionary and write down the true definition. Every other person who plays has to compose a fake definition and the winner of each round is the one who garners the most votes for their entry being the correct one. In order to win you have to be able to consistently coax others into believing your BS. I was actually pretty good at it. It never occurred to me that I could have taken that talent on the road with wikipedia.
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Reminds me of "The Dictionary Game" where you pick an obscure word from the dictionary and write down the true definition. Every other person who plays has to compose a fake definition and the winner of each round is the one who garners the most votes for their entry being the correct one. In order to win you have to be able to consistently coax others into believing your BS. I was actually pretty good at it. It never occurred to me that I could have taken that talent on the road with wikipedia.
There's a storebought board game called "Balderdash" with that basic premise. Loads of fun.
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Back in the day I used to entertain myself by adding all the missed info Wiki had on Bill Clinton, the latter having a devoted acolyte who would scrub my entries within minutes...and back in I would go...making slight changes or large...it was obvious the acolyte was doing a mass copy/paste job of the sanitized info over anything timestamped since their last sanitation job.
Wiki cannot be trusted with anything of a political nature beyond basic "who", everything else will be scrubbed by minions.
Always take your Wiki with a grain of salt...
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Back in the day I used to entertain myself by adding all the missed info Wiki had on Bill Clinton, the latter having a devoted acolyte who would scrub my entries within minutes...and back in I would go...making slight changes or large...it was obvious the acolyte was doing a mass copy/paste job of the sanitized info over anything timestamped since their last sanitation job.
Wiki cannot be trusted with anything of a political nature beyond basic "who", everything else will be scrubbed by minions.
Always take your Wiki with a grain of salt...
You're definitely not alone. I discovered Wackypedia when some leftist tossed a link in my face with a "read it and weep!" sneer. I followed the link and found bullsnot that was easily disputed with other references. I did ask him if he believed everything he read on the Intarwebz and his response was that Wacky was unimpeachable.
So I edited a page and inserted babbling bullsnot of my own, then giving him a referral. "OK, now do you believe everything you read on the Intarwebz?! I repeated.
Wackypedia is hopelessly biased on environmental, political, and religious issues. The only time I use them is to poke fun at the 'tards.
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I remember editing the Wikipedia article for Richard Blumenthal back when he was running for CT Senate and there was that controversy about his exaggerated claims of military service. I suggested that his prior military service had included a valiant effort during the Clone Wars, for which he was given numerous awards by Emperor Barack Palpatine.
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I remember editing the Wikipedia article for Richard Blumenthal back when he was running for CT Senate and there was that controversy about his exaggerated claims of military service. I suggested that his prior military service had included a valiant effort during the Clone Wars, for which he was given numerous awards by Emperor Barack Palpatine.
::laughonfloor::
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I remember editing the Wikipedia article for Richard Blumenthal back when he was running for CT Senate and there was that controversy about his exaggerated claims of military service. I suggested that his prior military service had included a valiant effort during the Clone Wars, for which he was given numerous awards by Emperor Barack Palpatine.
::laughonfloor::
Somebody apparently thought it was funny enough to make a screen cap:
http://twitpic.com/1p76pr (http://twitpic.com/1p76pr)
(http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/102791871.jpg?1274297145)
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I remember editing the Wikipedia article for Richard Blumenthal back when he was running for CT Senate and there was that controversy about his exaggerated claims of military service. I suggested that his prior military service had included a valiant effort during the Clone Wars, for which he was given numerous awards by Emperor Barack Palpatine.
::laughonfloor::
Somebody apparently thought it was funny enough to make a screen cap:
http://twitpic.com/1p76pr (http://twitpic.com/1p76pr)
(http://d3j5vwomefv46c.cloudfront.net/photos/large/102791871.jpg?1274297145)
That is hilarious!
Wikipedia would be cool if you could stop lefties from editing. Nothing in the history section can be relied on, there is so much that is incorrect or biased.
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::hysterical::
Oh man, that is some good stuff right there!
::laughonfloor::