Comments | laura_seabrook: Wikipedia scandal

laura_seabrook

Wikipedia scandal

Aug 20, 2007 14:59

My opinion of the Wikipedia just went down a notch. From the BBC Article:

( Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits' )

cia, news, bbc, wikipedia, vatican

Comments 12

bendiviolet August 20 2007, 05:23:02 UTC

But they were right about Rush.

ruth_lawrence August 20 2007, 10:12:27 UTC

Now that the Scanner is being used, I'm a lot *less* worried about it.

If... laura_seabrook August 21 2007, 08:52:51 UTC

...it works!

Re: If... ruth_lawrence August 21 2007, 09:42:11 UTC

Should for a while.

johanna_hypatia August 20 2007, 11:36:05 UTC

I don't see what's the big scare here. Internet pranksters are everywhere and Wikipedia is a tempting target for foolishness. If there really were a nefarious intel conspiracy to spread disinformation, they would go about it in a way that wouldn't be immediately caught and edited right out. Sticking in a "waaah!" is the act of a lone graffitist screwing off at work instead of working.

The worry... laura_seabrook August 21 2007, 08:54:54 UTC

...is that changes don't always get reviewed immediately, and teams of editors can continually "spin " or "angle" entries in subtle ways.

Re: The worry... johanna_hypatia August 21 2007, 13:52:22 UTC

That's a given with that setup... it's always been a known problem, and they have a system in place to correct for it, which like most volunteer human systems doesn't exactly work at peak efficiency. The scare-story headline made it sound like the spooks had an evil plot to subvert the public's information (like they have been known to do in the past), but the content of the story had nothing factual to back up that claim.

dfordoom August 20 2007, 12:48:10 UTC

My opinion of wikipedia couldn't have sunk any lower anyway. It's just such an amazingly bad idea, and people are surprised because it's become a farce.

Certainly... laura_seabrook August 21 2007, 08:53:57 UTC

...it's capable of a lot of bias in the editing of pages, and especially in selecting pages to be reviewed. I've seen this bias both with pages related to web comics and some trans and queer pages.

Re: Certainly... dfordoom August 21 2007, 09:07:37 UTC

Wikipedia is simply a joke. The whole idea is so badly flawed, so absurd, that it tetrifies me that some people take it seriously. When I first heard about wikipedia I assumed it was a spoof, that nobody would be silly enough to actually do something like that. The internet is scary.

Re: Certainly... laura_seabrook August 21 2007, 09:27:20 UTC

I became an editor there because I felt that if I didn't correct stuff, and keep an eye on certain pages, then incorrect or inaccurate stuff would be presented as fact.

Thread 5