Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2006-02-13/In the news

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The following discussion copied here from Wikipedia:Village pump (news)#Boston Globe will publish long 2-part series on Wikipedia on February 13. It is not up to date.

[edit] Boston Globe will publish long 2-part series on Wikipedia

first part This article sucks--it's dead on. Damn the Seigenthaler incident. It's made the press so gimlet-eyed. They used to just pile blind superlatives about what a great social experiment this is.

Lotsofissues 08:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It's ironic that an article on the reliability problems of Wikipedia makes a false statement: "On his own, Seigenthaler tracked down the saboteur to a business in Nashville, and an employee there admitted altering the article" (p. 3). Seigenthaler hit a dead end with the vandal's ISP, and internet activist Daniel Brandt successfully tracked down the vandal. When people consider this issue, they often don't seem to take into account the frequency of inaccuracies in the media.--Nectar 10:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the article is not "dead on". It's riddled with errors. While they claim this "raises new questions" people have been aware of the problems for years. They say it is "Two months after a highly publicized attack" when the vandalism itself was actually in May. They wrongly imply all articles are "written by thousands of anonymous contributors.". They say "funds to support the project come mostly from public fund-raising, in gifts of $50 to $100." when some contributions are much more or much less. The author also confuses slander and libel. He says Jimbo removed the Seigenthaler libel when it wasn't him. The list goes on. Wikipedia is undoubtedly inaccurate in parts, but we correct our mistakes (as I did with those mentioned in the article). Superm401 - Talk 03:23, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone reviewed the Wikipedia errors mentioned in the article? Kaldari 09:00, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked all of them and I can confirm that at least according to the information in the article, all of the errors identified have been addressed, though I can't confirm the one about Hingham, Massachusetts, because I can't access the link used as a reference there. They haven't been cited to multiple external sources, but our articles do now conform to the information the Globe listed as being from the various experts. Below are the four articles they mentioned. All but Tubman are mentioned in the last section of the Globe article:

• Harriet Tubman
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Bernard F. Law
• Hingham, Massachusetts

They're probably worth a check to further independent sources to go the extra mile. - Taxman ^Talk 23:10, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

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