Re: The 15 biggest Wikipedia blunders

["Alex Eckelberry" <AlexE () sunbelt-software com>]

There's also idiocies and unprofessionalism.  I once saw an entry about an actress, and it described her as being 
"hot". 

Stuff like that slips by all the time.  Also, you can really put anything you want there, as long as you have a 
reference link (which can be self-serving).  In the case of issues that aren't tracked very intently, it often gets 
overlooked. 

Alex


-----Original Message-----
From: funsec-bounces () linuxbox org [mailto:funsec-bounces () linuxbox org] On Behalf Of chris () blask org
Sent: Monday, August 31, 2009 12:45 PM
To: funsec () linuxbox org; David M Chess
Subject: Re: [funsec] The 15 biggest Wikipedia blunders



--- On Mon, 8/31/09, David M Chess <chess () us ibm com> wrote:

> Calling these "blunders" is a bit misleading; they're pretty much all instances of vandalism.  And most instances of 
> vandalism are fixed very very quickly (within minutes or better).

True, I've fixed a few myself.  Usually some sort of political statement (i.e. "Dr. such and such murdered unborn 
children...").  The auto-correcting (and perhaps auto-vandalizing?) nature of Wiki is one of its most unique 
characteristics.

> It would be more interesting to see
> a list of untruths that persisted for (say) longer than a
> day.  And to see some analysis of which were successful vandalism and
> which were something else.  Otherwise, "Wikipedia has at
> various instants contained false statements!" really isn't all that
> interesting, and doesn't really tell us much...

I think it would take something of a concerted effort to perform such an analysis.  Only once have I gotten dragged 
into the midst of a wiki-editors' war, and what I learned is that there are some folks who put a lot of effort into 
bending the W to reflect their views.  Researchers would have to have at least as much free time to dedicate to the 
task to come up with a useful analysis, but it would certainly be valuable.

-chris


      

_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.

_______________________________________________
Fun and Misc security discussion for OT posts.
https://linuxbox.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/funsec
Note: funsec is a public and open mailing list.