Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2013-02-11/Op-ed

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Nice article Resident Mario. It is a big problem. As Wikipedia is successful, we get more and more vandalism, lies, spam and business promotion. As maintenance instead of building up is unattractive, we lose more and more editors and donated editing time. Wikipedia's future is endangered. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 08:36, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The prose in Bicholm conflict might have been "well crafted", but the hoax itself was transparent and easily detectable - had I reviewed the article for DYK, for example, using basic DYK checks I would almost certainly have identified it as a hoax immediately. But neither the GA review nor the (admittedly brief) FAC discussion picked up the problem.

The lesson is really a pretty simple one - be suspicious of any article none of whose major references can be verified online, and for whose content you cannot find any corroboration elsewhere. Gatoclass (talk) 09:18, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

ROFL! This article previously quoted from the Wikipedia biography controversy article, saying that the hoax had not been discovered and corrected for more than nine months, which is a clear mathematical error (May to September is four months). The "nine months" text was in the main article about the Wikipedia biography controversy article due to unreverted vandalism from November 2012. I've fixed both the mainspace and SP articles, but I guess this op-ed proved its own point. Graham87 11:42, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Great, the Chen Fang incident was my fault... Back in 2008, I found out about the hoax from an acquaintance and immediately nominated it for deletion (because contemporary news sources had a different person as the mayor). The hoaxer one day randomly introduced himself to me at work, claimed credit for the page I'd just nominated, and presented me with "evidence" that I am User:Mxn – duh – intending to pressure me to delete the AfD template. He soon deleted the template himself and produced a source that lay behind a paywall (something like Newsbank or ProQuest). It sounded fishy, so on the talk page, I promised to check the source once I got back to campus after my internship, but I never got around to it. Moral of the story: don't procrastinate, or your error will be preserved in Harvard policy for posterity. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 12:25, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia may be the largest and most expansive information compendium the world has ever seen as noted in the article above, but none of Wikipedia's four million articles is a standalone article on a cover song as far as I am aware. Not one in Wikipedia's 12 year existence. Is this too a hoax? A recent DRV request to obtain consensus to create Hound Dog (Elvis Presley cover song) as a standalone article was closed as against policy that first needed to be changed: "if you want to change the policy you need an RFC." In other words, Wikipedia content policy prohibits anyone from posting Hound Dog (Elvis Presley cover song) as a standalone article. Really? What about Johnny Cash's Hurt, Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You, or Aretha Franklin's Respect? No standalone cover song articles on these allowed in the largest and most expansive information compendium the world has ever seen? What that is saying is that not one of those or thousands of other cover songs meets both WP:N and WP:NOT. Does that make any sense to anyone or is it meant to play a joke on (someone)? Perhaps there is no Wikipedia policy that prohibits anyone from posting Hound Dog (Elvis Presley cover song) or thousands of other cover songs as standalone articles and this instead is the sixteenth most impactful and notable hoax to have existed on Wikipedia. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And what the hell does this have to do with the article? Hot Stop (Talk) 13:45, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Hell"? Read the article and then read my post again. You'll see it. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 13:48, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be completely confused. That article has never existed, so it can't be undeleted, which is what DRV is for. If you think it should be created, create it, just make sure you source it. The wikiproject can't stop articles being created. All it could do is nominate it for deletion, then it's up to the community. And it has nothing to do with hoaxes. Ged UK 13:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

My above post has more in it than what you focus on in your reply. There are no standalone cover song articles in Wikipedia. Where did they all go? Further on the above, what is it that is discouraging Wikipedia writers from stepping forward to write standalone articles about some of the most popular songs of all time? Perhaps the elimination of all standalone cover song articles from Wikipedia is the sixteenth hoax to the above listed fifteen most impactful and notable hoax to have existed on Wikipedia. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 14:14, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nice history overview. Hoaxes have always been around: "Some may be pleased to find that the national history begins with a hoax: the chronologically earliest ‘figure’ is Piltdown Man" [1]; but frighteningly easy? Rather than erecting higher hurdles to contribute, the system needs improvement to turn energy to productive product, such as reCAPTCHA. The wrong lesson was learned from Seigenthaler, it's not that an anonymous editor created the bio, but that anonymous attempts at corrections were reverted: the system lacks the discernment between error correction and vandalism. A hoax project is needed to flag and correct hoaxes before DYK. It shouldn't take press coverage to get factual errors corrected. Farmbrough's revenge⇔ †@1₭ 14:52, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- The difference between liar and a friend, is that a friend stays with you forever. So a registered user with more than 10,000 edits is more likely a Wikipedia friend than an anonymous IP. We need seniors, people should stay in the club and not quit with 25 years. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 16:47, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice and well-written article! While you focus on the hoaxes, I am more thankful for your characterization of Wikipedia-editor-evolution: That as the encyclopedia has grown, much of the effort has shifted from "horizontal to vertical" editing, and requires editors with more specialized knowledge. That's a real good paragraph that should be shown to all those reporters who indicate the declining number of editors means Wikipedia is in "trouble." -- kosboot (talk) 17:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The addendum which provides a "Top 15" list of hoaxes adds information and interest to the story, but it also adds notoriety and excitement to hoaxers. I think future articles or op-eds should consider not naming hoaxes. Linking to an existing list serves the same purpose and doesn’t provide as much of an incentive to future hoaxers. SchreiberBike (talk) 19:05, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"This is not a problem that can be easily solved; but nor is it one that should be, as it is now, easily ignored." ResMar 23:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are a lot of good points here, and I understand the appeal of pending changes &c but I think that it (and other forms of page-protection, more generally) is not a helpful response to the hoax problem. This is because restricting who can edit an article is *very* hard to square with our principle that anybody can edit articles, so we only apply protection in cases where there's a known problem or there's a good reason to expect imminent abuse. These are the articles which already have many eyes on them; these are the articles where it's hardest to hoax.

Just as with other problems of accuracy and neutrality, a hoax's best chance of survival is in a quiet backwater where there are fewer other people looking; where nobody suspects a problem. I can't imagine the community agreeing to apply PC, or other protection tools, across millions of obscure, low-traffic, maybe-unwatched articles which haven't yet been flagged up on any noticeboard. bobrayner (talk) 11:55, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hoax is just a form of vandalism, vandalism in the broad sense is the problem. You lose motivation and enthusiasm. It wears you down. Schoolboy vandalism, hoaxes, spam, business promotion, "political correctness" (lies), harasment, edit warring and "paid" editing (in the broad sense; you do me a favour, than I do you a favour) are all a problem. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 12:10, 14 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mind you that we are in a "mission impossible". All friends of Wikipedia want its quality improving. If we are losing editors, if the vandalism in the broad sense is getting worse, if there is no pending changes for main space edits from school IPs (at least), if there is an absolute prohibition for advertising, if you are able to access the toolserver between 24:00 and 12:00 Eastern Time Zone, only; when we are heading for disaster, probably. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 08:03, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to read, thanks. I highlight a somewhat lateral issue, but it is the first time I see it prominentely written out (though I would not be surprised at all it has been mentioned quite a few times before). I quote: «The project has reached its saturation limit—put another way, there simply aren't enough new people out there with both the will and the smarts to sustain growth». Seems many of the efforts for attracting and keeping editors simply forget that, expected continuous indefinite exponential growth (as in the mid 2000's). Nabla (talk) 03:26, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- The project isn't saturated. Fighting vandalism get's you ruder (Wikipedia:Civility) against all editors. And vandalism in the broad sense wears down all Wikipedians. --Chris.urs-o (talk) 08:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I made the "saturation limit" argument in another column here a while ago, it's linked in one of the citations. ResMar 22:16, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Chris.urs-o, I *think* it is not saturated as in "it can't grow anymore", because it may expand, it may reach new 'markets' (geographically and in type-of-editor). But is silly (though strangely common) to assume that it may grow exponentially, or even linearly, for ever. @Resident_Mario, thanks, I missed that (not so active then) I'll read it soon. - Nabla (talk) 00:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say as I understand the logic of applying the concept of hoax in relation to not having stand-alone articles on cover songs, but the premises is utterly incorrect. The following are all stand-alone articles on cover songs that are from the first 30 results of this Google search, that returned about 30,400 results:

--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:15, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand the relevancy of cover songs in an article about Wikipedia hoaxes. -- kosboot (talk) 13:05, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nor I.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:11, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Fuhghettaboutit's comment is in response to Uzma Gamal's above. – Minh Nguyễn (talk, contribs) 06:36, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]