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_ News Worth Discussing _ Student's Wikipedia hoax quote used worldwide in newspaper obituaries--Irish Times

Posted by: EricBarbour

QUOTE
A WIKIPEDIA hoax by a 22-year-old Dublin student http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0506/1224245992919.html being published in newspaper obituaries around the world.


I didn't see it in the Newsfeed. Anyone know more?

Posted by: Son of a Yeti

QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Wed 6th May 2009, 1:37am) *

QUOTE
A WIKIPEDIA hoax by a 22-year-old Dublin student http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0506/1224245992919.html being published in newspaper obituaries around the world.


I didn't see it in the Newsfeed. Anyone know more?


I even could not find a single instance of this quote being used in a context different from describing this "hoax" (I mean in the newsfeeds searched by news.google.com - some blogs did seem to have taken up the bait).

Were they all retracted? 100% of them? Also from Google cache?

Posted by: carbuncle

QUOTE(Son of a Yeti @ Wed 6th May 2009, 12:43pm) *

I even could not find a single instance of this quote being used in a context different from describing this "hoax" (I mean in the newsfeeds searched by news.google.com - some blogs did seem to have taken up the bait).

Were they all retracted? 100% of them? Also from Google cache?

The last paragraph of the http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/mar/31/maurice-jarre-obituary:
QUOTE
This article was amended on Friday 3 April 2009. Maurice Jarre died on 28 March 2009, not 29 March. We opened with a quotation which we are now advised had been invented as a hoax, and was never said by the composer: "My life has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life." The article closed with: "Music is how I will be remembered," said Jarre. "When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head and that only I can hear." These quotes appear to have originated as a deliberate insertion in the composer's Wikipedia entry in the wake of his death on 28 March, and from there were duplicated on various internet sites. These errors have been corrected.

Posted by: Somey

Here's the http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/06/2237244. There are some halfway-decent ideas in there, actually, though I'm afraid none of them are coming from the pro-WP crowd, who once again can only manage the usual just-not-getting-it references to "the Nature study," and the standard self-righteous blathering about how "people should just stop vandalizing our website."

I realize Slashdot has one of the biggest user bases of any news/discussion forum on the internet, and I'm also biased... but it just seems to me that when WP-related issues appear on Slashdot, user support is always reflective of the tone and purpose of the original thread-starter. So if someone posts a new story about something embarrassing to WP, people pile on to attack WP, and if someone posts something positive about WP, people pile on to defend WP, usually by attacking its detractors.

Sometimes you see that with stories about Microsoft, Oracle, and Sun/Java, too (and I believe the latter two have now merged, btw). Maybe it's something about the way Slashdot is set up... I've never looked all that closely at their mod-points system, to be honest.

Posted by: Peter Damian

QUOTE
Closing his follow-up report in last Thursday's Irish Times, Fitzgerald raised a worrying question: "If I could so easily falsify the news across the globe, even to this small extent, then it is unnerving to think about what other false information may be reported in the press."


Excellent - except I've gone through all 6 pages and no comments from WR - or have I missed a thread here?

[edit] A moderator moved this post to the right thread. Thanks.

Posted by: Peter Damian

QUOTE(Somey @ Fri 8th May 2009, 9:52am) *

Here's the http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/06/2237244. There are some halfway-decent ideas in there, actually, though I'm afraid none of them are coming from the pro-WP crowd, who once again can only manage the usual just-not-getting-it references to "the Nature study," and the standard self-righteous blathering about how "people should just stop vandalizing our website."


Eh? But then when you point out the problem with a reference work 'anyone can edit' they tell you there are no problems.

Posted by: Peter Damian

Here is the exact sequence

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=280558491&oldid=280527998 2:29, 30 March 2009 86.42.227.123 inserts fake quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=280629550&oldid=280626742 11:51, 30 March 2009 (edit) (undo)Cosprings reverts

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=280649291&oldid=280648942 14:13, 30 March 2009 (edit) (undo)86.42.227.123 tries again

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=280872760&oldid=280865419 15:07, 31 March 2009 (edit) (undo) Cosprings reverts - with the comment 'no unsourced quotes'. Interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=280893979&oldid=280872760 17:03, 31 March 2009 (edit) (undo)86.42.227.123 tries again

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Maurice_Jarre&diff=280895130&oldid=280893979 17:09, 31 March 2009 (edit) (undo)Bongomatic

10 out of 10 for an inventive and plausible quote. 0 out of 10 for not giving a plausible fake citation (which no one checks at all).

Posted by: Somey

QUOTE(Peter Damian @ Mon 11th May 2009, 12:26pm) *
Excellent - except I've gone through all 6 pages and no comments from WR - or have I missed a thread here?

Eh wot? hmmm.gif

Speaking only for myself, I'm much more interested in the reactions of Slashdotters to WP-related issues than I am in trying to debate the scientific merit of "editing experiments" involving the deliberate insertion of false information into some WP article... To participate in the discussion would be violating the "Prime Directive," from my personal perspective - it's essentially the same reason I don't edit Wikipedia itself. For me, it's basically a gigantic behavioral test tube.

There are also real-life issues to consider - even if Jarre's family wasn't particularly offended by that particular fake quote, they might still be offended by people defending this person's "right" (or other justification) to add it in. Of course, nobody has written more fake quotes than yours truly, but those are in Uncyclopedia, where they belong - not Wikipedia, where they don't.

Anyway, the "accuracy issue" is a red herring as far as I'm concerned. It's probably much more important to you (i.e., Peter) because you're a highly-qualified academic in an area that WP does especially poorly in. But ultimately it's just a recruitment strategy for them, just like the fundamentally silly "inclusionism vs. deletionism debate." People get hooked by the arguing and drama, the gamesmanship, and the need to defend, defend, defend. It's no way to build an encyclopedia, but it's certainly been a good way to expand the user-base.

Posted by: Milton Roe

QUOTE(EricBarbour @ Wed 6th May 2009, 1:37am) *

QUOTE
A WIKIPEDIA hoax by a 22-year-old Dublin student http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0506/1224245992919.html being published in newspaper obituaries around the world.


I didn't see it in the Newsfeed. Anyone know more?

It's in newsfeed today with a vengeance.

Posted by: victim of censorship

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090512/ap_on_hi_te/eu_ireland_wikipedia_hoaxer

Posted by: SirFozzie

Welcome to two weeks ago, Joey.

Posted by: victim of censorship

QUOTE(SirFozzie @ Tue 12th May 2009, 3:44pm) *

Welcome to two weeks ago, Joey.


WELCOME TO YAHOO TODAY...
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Irish-student-hoaxes-worlds-apf-15201451.html?.v=1


This should be a little dent in the Juice wiki got as far as fund raising...

Any one that gives money to Wikipedia now only helps funds Big SUE Gardner's 450K /year stipend.

Yahoo... let the truth about wiki and the sociopaths who run, admins and game wiki be outed and shown the lieing thugs they are.


I love you too.

Posted by: SirFozzie

Poor Joey. Missed all the ones praising Wikipedia for getting rid of the false quote, which the newspapers didn't do till a month later.

Early onset of Alzheimer's maybe....