Spork, A story of vandalism Options

[cyofee]

Two weeks ago, on January 14, the Spork article was vandalized. As the perpetrator was a registered user, the edit slipped through the near-impenetrable network of preteen RC patrollers. The edit in question added the following paragraph:

In 1993, it was made illegal to carry a concealed metal Spork in the state of [[Wyoming]], as well as later, in the city of [[Moose Jaw]], [[Saskatchewan]] in 1995, after a surge of 'sporkings' occurred, in which it became common, in certain neighborhoods, for people to poke those which annoyed or irritated them with Sporks. This trend was ignored for quite some time, until courts ruled that, after one man, by the name of Jerry Speights, received a Spork to the eyeball after a particularly heated sporking over a lost parking space, a metal Spork could cause damage if poked hard enough or in certain spots on the human body. To this day, it is still legal, however, to poke people with plastic Sporks, and is quite a common thing to find in certain towns in both [[Wyoming]], [[USA]] and [[Saskatchewan]], [[Canada]]. In [[fandom]], this is thought to be where the term 'sporking' (often used when one finds a particularly bad or funny [[fanfic]] and chooses to make fun of it) originated.

Now, it may just be me, but that's some pretty obvious vandalism. Poking people with sporks? Sporking? Seriously. Also, remember the name Jerry Speights.

The article sat like that for some six days. I noticed it during that time, and decided to wait and see just how long it takes for Wikipedos to find and remove it.

On January 22 an IP editor renamad the "Popular Culture" section into "Trivia". That immediately attracted the attention of McGeddon the vandal fighter, who removed the trivia section completely.

Later that day, another IP added some rubbish, which McGeddon swiftly reverted. He apparently didn't bother to read the article as he'd probably have found the sporking part dubious, at least.

On January 23, an IP added {{citation needed}} to the hoax paragraph. Nothing else happened until January 27 , when some more vandalism was added and reverted by another vandal fighter. The vandalism was added again by the same user and reverted again, this time by McGeddon who by this time certainly had the article on his watchlist.

On January 29, an IP decided that "foon" is the more correct term. A random guy reverted some of it, but left the rest in the article.

On January 31, there was some more vandalism which the allmighty ClueBot reverted. Another "foon" mention was removed on the following day, but that still left two in the article. Speight, the guy who removed it on February 1 , actually bothered to read the article and even found some problems which stood in the article since January 12. He also (finally) noticed and removed the hoax paragraph which I've been watching.

Remember the name Jeremy Speights? It's awfully similar to Speight, isn't it? Could it be that the guy whose name is mentioned in the hoax googled his name and found that he had apparently received a spork in the eye? Could it be that we have a BLP victim, even though this isn't a BLP? Speight's email address is amettler%gmail.com and he says he's a graduate student at Berkeley. A quick google search finds that there really exists one Adrian Mettler, a graduate student at Berkeley. So, what do we conclude? Speight/Adrian probably noticed the name which must have meant something to him. After a quick google, he realized it's a hoax.

So, is all well that ends well? There are still two mentions of "foon" in the Spork article. I expect that those will be removed by Wikipedo junkies within minutes of this post going live. The much deeper problem is that of subtle vandalism. The hoax stayed there for more then two weeks, it was seen by over 9000 people (lulz), and it got picked up by Google. It was only reverted when it was seen by someone to whom the mentioned name had special significance. Granted, this may not be the most popular of article, nor the greatest of libels, but it's a perfect example of Wikipedia's flaws. Wikipedos can't be bothered to research the article they're "fixing". Some very subtle vandalism I added to several articles back in 2005 persists to this day. One of those articles receives over 2500 views a day (and no, I'm not going to say which one). The sad thing is that I'm just one guy who spent one hour hitting Random Article and making small changes to numbers and facts. Imagine how many inaccuracies thre are in the 3 million articles the English Wikipedia has.

This post has been edited by cyofee: Sun 1st February 2009, 2:35pm

[Moulton]

The Woolworths School of Political Dramaturgy

Therein lies a subtle vulnerability of Wikipedia.

Heaven knows that Wikipedia, like any prominent segment of popular culture, is subject to parody and satire. But Wikipedia is also host to satire and parody including self-satire and self-parody.

Now it's a staple of stand-up comics to make fun of themselves and their own life experiences. And it's a staple feature of almost any well-adjusted cultural genre to accept good-natured ribbing and self-ribbing.

I checked with my most trusted subject-matter expert on Media Ethics just to be sure on this point...

In the SPJ Code of Ethics, is there anything that covers the role of political satire and parody? I've always considered political satire and parody to be a staple feature of mainstream journalism. 

Reply from Professor of Media Ethics: Political satire is fair game. Parody is protected. See SPJ Code of Ethics

Now this is where WikiCulture is at a crossroads. Not only is satire and parody a fair mode of political discourse, it's also a significant genre in literature. The sum of all human knowledge includes many classical examples of political satire and parody. Almost every student reads Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.

It's fascinating to observe how Wikipedians deal with artful instances of political satire and parody of the more ridiculous moieties of WikiCulture.

[Son of a Yeti]

If you knew how much sporking is going in the high Himalaya...

But seriously, you cannot blame vandal fighters for not reading in detail every article they repair. If you act fast and repair 99% using a quick glance as your only fact finding, it's OK with me. Someone else will notice the missing 1% sooner or later but 99% of articles stay clean.

Actually, to watch a vandalized article for two weeks and do nothing about this is much less nice than revert vandalism without reading every vandalized article.

[taiwopanfob]

Actually, to watch a vandalized article for two weeks and do nothing about this is much less nice than revert vandalism without reading every vandalized article.

Wikipedia claims to have the cure for the vandalism.

Watching vandalized articles for two weeks, months or years is about the only way to test these claims.

If you have a problem with that, then you have (curable) problems.

I'd also say that incomplete application of the cure is as bad as the disease itself. If you think about this for a moment, I hope you'll agree.

[Giggy]

Just for the record, cyoffee, Speight lists his email address on his userpage as "user amettler on host gmail.com" (I'm not actually sure if the "user" is part of the email) - ie. in an anti-spam sort of way. Could you please edit your post likewise?

I went ahead and removed the foon stuff, because clearly the numerous people who've read this post were too afraid to admit to being WR readers and do it themselves. Yay for badsites.

[Kelly Martin]

But seriously, you cannot blame vandal fighters for not reading in detail every article they repair.

I absolutely do blame vandal fighters for doing that, or at least blame Wikipedia for not adopting an approach for dealing with vandalism that would be more sensible and effective than their current one.

[cyofee]

Actually, to watch a vandalized article for two weeks and do nothing about this is much less nice than revert vandalism without reading every vandalized article.

Wikipedia claims to have the cure for the vandalism.

Watching vandalized articles for two weeks, months or years is about the only way to test these claims.

If you have a problem with that, then you have (curable) problems.

I'd also say that incomplete application of the cure is as bad as the disease itself. If you think about this for a moment, I hope you'll agree.

Very well said. The fact that some (most by quantity, but less so by quality) vandalism is removed gives the impression that Wikipedia is accurate and hoax/vandalism-free, which it isn't.

[carbuncle]

Foon. Nuff said.

[Son of a Yeti]

Wikipedia claims to have the cure for the vandalism.

Watching vandalized articles for two weeks, months or years is about the only way to test these claims.

I actually know what a scientific experiment is (you can find scientists even in the high Himalaya but they are not too tasty).

I simply doubt this was a scientific experiment and that it proved anything. I'm very critical of the trends I see happening on Wikipedia. Many productive editors have been chased off. It may be true also about the AV-brigade.

However, I'm not aware of anyone claiming WP is vandal proof. So what the rest was intended to disprove was the so-called straw man. Prove me false by finding some actual claims of WP vandal invincibility.

And check up "straw man" if you do not know the term [1].





[1] I have not edited WP for a long time. Therefore I find t amusing that I felt urge to write [[straw man]] in the body of my message above ;-)

[UseOnceAndDestroy]

But seriously, you cannot blame vandal fighters for not reading in detail every article they repair.

Of course you can. Claiming to "edit" suggests one is paying attention to the text one is hacking away at. If so much of wikipedia is being so carelessly edited to remove "vandalism", then "anyone can edit" starts to look much less of a plus.

Actually, to watch a vandalized article for two weeks and do nothing about this is much less nice than revert vandalism without reading every vandalized article.

That seems to assume everyone is a potential unpaid labourer for wikipedia. Personally, I find spreading the word about the actual state of wikipedia to be a really "nice" thing to do.

[Milton Roe]

[1] I have not edited WP for a long time. Therefore I find t amusing that I felt urge to write [[straw man]] in the body of my message above ;-)

Oh, there should be a school for WPers who come here and have to do translation. First, you have to repress yourself from typing ~~~~ at the ends of messages. Then all [[ ]]s are replaced by links. And the closest thing to a pipelink here is the [url= thingy.

And if you've posted on WR too long, you know it, because when you go to quote something on WP, you start out "[[quote]]" (but single bracket), instead of <blockquote>...