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Most elaborate Wikipedia hoax


Still Waters

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It was voted a 'good article' - a Wikipedia badge of honor - and sat happily on the online encyclopedia for more than half a decade. But editors have lately discovered a small issue with the site's meticulously written 4,500 word article detailing the 17th century Bicholim Conflict.

It was entirely made up.

http://www.dailymail...-word-hoax.html

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But of course the Daily Mail is always credible. Isn't this like the pot calling the kettle black.

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But of course the Daily Mail is always credible. Isn't this like the pot calling the kettle black.

They sourced the Daily Dot for this piece of news.

http://www.dailydot....t-hoax-deleted/

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Lets invent new law, about intenional spreading of lies, misleading people, deciving. Find him trough IP and punish him.

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Lets invent new law, about intenional spreading of lies, misleading people, deciving. Find him trough IP and punish him.

They already exist.. There just overwhelmed by Laws behind freedom.. You have to standup against tyranny.. Or else its considered your letting it happen.. Which is apparently against the law..

Which leads to the fact that were able to sue the govt so easily. Why? Why do cases end so pathetically? IDK its annoying.. Its The point and reasoning of rebellion and why theres so much hype behind it....

OH, you said new law... Well sure thing, lets do it!!. oh wait we cant.. Revolves around religion to much. GAHD im getting bored.

Edited by KainFall
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There was a page about a fictitious airport in South Africa which I knew was a hoax because I have edited most of S.A. airports myself. It was duly removed. The fraudster's IP address was banned I'm sure. I think that there are enough serious people perusing Wiki to quickly pick up duff entries, however as long as anyone can edit it there will always be vandals.

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theres people out there who have nothing better to do then mislead,misdirect and misinform others for there own entertainment

but i suppose in a way as long as its not hurting anyone who cares

its up to individuals to form there own opinions about things

wikipedia is well known for its not so accurate information

the writer of this particular article i'm sure got quite a chuckle from all this

just like all the other hoaxers out there..circlemakers and the like

its all part of the human condition...if all of us were on the same page the progress we would make

towards understanding aspects of our existence would be infinite in value

but we are not all the same..humans are imperfect creatures who will manipulate and decieve there own kind...i guess its an evolutionary phenonema really...survival of the fittest and all that

i lie to you where the food source is so theres more for me or something like that

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Before deciding that Wikipedia is unreliable, it should be borne in mind that an independent study found it as accurate as other sources of general information. Wikipedia has become much more careful about its fact checking and editing, over the years.

Scholarship in general is scarcely immune from incidents of fraud. There are many instances of scientists 'cooking' the data to fraudulently prove or disprove something, and its being believed in for years The piltdown man hoax was seriously believed in by science for decades. Shall we assume that these incidents mean that scientific community is unreliable and disreputable?

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Fictional hoaxes aside, Wikipedia has been having a few troubles of it's own.

Apparently Jimmy Wales has been trolling for donations now and again.

So would anybody here put their hands in their pockets to save something where the info can be faked?

However I think it's the nature of the beast that anybody can put their five cents in besides the jokers.

It's a total free for all where any kind of trivia can be placed to illuminate us.

There could be people contributing to it that have not that realised the information is misleading anyway.

If you want my honest opinion nothing is to be taken for granted on the Internet.

Tbh I wouldn't spotted this re-writing of history which go's to show how clever it is.

However there's always somebody waiting round the corner who's smarter.

Edited by Medium Brown
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theres people out there who have nothing better to do then mislead,misdirect and misinform others

Would that be the mainstream media or the politicians?

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I would much rather go to Wikipedia, which has basically neutrally oriented Fact Checkers, rather then simply trust in any of the millions of politically... religiously... socially... racially... oriented/slanted independent sites that don't site their information at all.

Edited by DieChecker
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Would that be the mainstream media or the politicians?

Agree. Politicians and the media like to fabricate and mislead. That's why it's so hard for me to vote or watch much news.

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there's a game i played called medieval total war and in the Campaign Portal go to war with the Maratha Empire its incredible how many people have been fooled.

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Lets invent new law, about intenional spreading of lies, misleading people, deciving. Find him trough IP and punish him.

Are you lying? :su

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there's a game i played called medieval total war and in the Campaign Portal go to war with the Maratha Empire its incredible how many people have been fooled.

I think you got the games mixed up :P Empire total war and you're quite right. Time to roll out an update.

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What do you want to do, completely eliminate all user input? Let a couple of whitewashed jerks decide for everyone else what articles should be included and who gets to edit them? Wow, that will make for an exciting site. It will be like the set of print encyclopedias collecting dust on the shelf, no interactivity, look but don't touch.

Edited by Order66
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What do you want to do, completely eliminate all user input? Let a couple of whitewashed jerks decide for everyone else what articles should be included and who gets to edit them? Wow, that will make for an exciting site. It will be like the set of print encyclopedias collecting dust on the shelf, no interactivity, look but don't touch.

Yeah, I agree. Why ruin millions of useful inputs for the reason of a handful of rotten ones.

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people shouldn't take wikipedia for granted because it's quite rubbish

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I would much rather go to Wikipedia, which has basically neutrally oriented Fact Checkers, rather then simply trust in any of the millions of politically... religiously... socially... racially... oriented/slanted independent sites that don't site their information at all.

Fully agree with this. The vast majority of "independent" sites on the web are there to promote agendas of individual people and groups........more often than not using sources that are as equally biased as any of the content on sites. Infowars is a good example of this.

Also, the proper spelling is "cite".

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Love this! Can't believe it even got a badge of honour.

It reminds me of something my friend's father, who is a secondary school English teacher and his colleague did, set their class a research task overnight (after lessons about research and using good sources) about a fairly obscure historical figure. On that evening, they changed the date of birth on the Wikipedia page for this figure, just for the day. Lo and behold, 90%+ of the class came into school the next day with the incorrect date of birth. Sigh.

I do think Wikipedia is a useful tool however. While I know it is not suitable to be used as a reference for most things, when I am faced with research on something complicated that I know little about, Wikipedia is often very good at explaining it, and provides sources which can then be checked out in turn.

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