Talk:Sinbad/Death hoax

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[edit] Proud/damage

Though Sinbads death is shameful, I think Wikipedia can be proud of eliminating him so soon. Jens Nielsen 14:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, 72 minutes is still not fast enough. I hope all the people who watch the edits with a special tool tell it to highlight articles in the category Category:Living people, and pay extra special attention to unsourced edits announcing someone's death.
That said, even if it had only been on the site for 1 minute, all it takes is one idiot who posts a link to the revision and a screenshot, and sits back to watch the carnage. Must be a slow news day, though, otherwise I don't see why it would be friggin' international news that someone vandalized a page at Wikipedia. 194.151.6.70 14:54, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think Wikipedia can be proud of eliminating the error so soon. If the error had been corrected before being noticed by the news media, maybe we could be satisfied (not proud, just satisfied) with that. But the news coverage of this incident is likely to damage Wikipedia's reputation. --Metropolitan90 14:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
It's just another day on Wikipedia. People have either decided for us or against us, one more vandalised article isn't going to hurt. -- Zanimum 15:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Actually, I'm convinced it was corrected before the news media got to read it. Show me one newsman who read the erroneous information from the most recent article. The reason is simply that the malicious individual sent round a link to the outdated article, and the media did not bother to check the real thing. Jens Nielsen 16:49, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I doubt that we can be proud of this coming so soon on the heels of Essjay. It appears that "anyone" HAS decided that they "CAN edit". I think Wikipedia will degenerate into either a full-tilt loonie bin like many newsgroups, or will be forced to have all contributors known, checked, and double-checked. The word is out online, you can do anything on Wikipedia and the fastest they'll get around to fixing it is 72 minutes. That's nearly 5X the fame Andy Warhol said the little buggers would have. Nirigihimu 16:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
These types of issues are extremely damaging to Wikipedia's reputation. I saw a news feature the other day talking about how some college professors are not letting their students use Wikipedia as a source because they feel it is not reliable. --speedoflight | talk to me 18:45, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
You can't damage Wikipedia's reputation with one piece of vandalism. What hurts Wikipedia's reputation is the fact that Wikipedia ignores their own standard for attribution. Pick any sentence in any Wikipedia article - there's less than one chance in a thousand that the source is indicated. It's all original research - and while original research can be great if you have someone backing it with their reputation, when it comes from an anonymous source, it's highly undependable. How much you want to bet that Sinbad's press agent didn't edit this story in order to put him in the public eye? 72.72.138.145 20:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
72 minutes not fast enough? How often do you check this article? (It's the first time in 4 years I've been here.) I'm quite satisfied with the response time. And as for college professors not letting students use Wikipedia as a source - they are absolutely right! There would have been severe consequences to my grade had I used an encyclopedia of any kind as a source for my college papers. Go to the references from Wikipedia, read them, and cite them directly. -- ke4roh 20:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Back in the 20th century dirt world, buildings called libraries had books called encyclopedias... what if somebody slipped in a fake volume, or cleverly edited a page or two? would it take 72 minutes for the librarian to find it? Would it ever be found?

That's a terrible analogy. One encyclopedia in one library is a little different than wikipedia being vandalized; this is the equivalent of every copy of the Encylopedia Britannica in every library being so vandalized. Not that I'm sure how you would "edit" an encyclopedia so as to make it seem real; it would probably have to happen while the books were being printed, whereupon I'm sure it would be caught relatively quickly and the offending volume reprinted. --Dan Moore 23:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Encyclopedias, I believe, did put in small amounts of intentionally false info--nonexistant towns or the like, so that those who copied wholesale could be caught. Fred Saberhagen wrote a story in his Berserker series about a futuristic version of that.--Wehwalt 16:42, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spam

As I am locked from editing this page, can someone remove the FindArticles spam hidden in the references section? Thanks. --FeldBum 09:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. -- Zanimum 13:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Attribution

If we minded our attribution rules this would not happen. If you see an unsourced death, revert it until someone provides a source that is verifiable. Dominick (TALK) 14:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is true, but so far as we know, no admin saw this edit until it was reverted. -- Zanimum 15:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] US Goverment?

Strange that it was a xx.sc.us domain, someone at South Carolina government too much time on their hands? Dominick (TALK) 14:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify. From this [1] We can see this info:

NetRange: 167.7.0.0 - 167.7.255.255
NetName: SCAROLINA-GOV
NetType: Direct Assignment
NameServer: NS1.NET.STATE.SC.US

So it was someone who had access to the state network in South Carolina. The story should be someone is using SC resources to post false information about Sinbad. Of course many don't understand that Wikipedia is a place where people can post information about the world in an encyclopedia format, not that Wikipedia posts information about the world. I can even find stories about a Nazi moon base and it will indeed be listed. Why, because it has sources. We failed because editors did not insist on a published source for the death. Dominick (TALK) 15:13, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Cottageville, South Carolina appears to be the exact source (see the WhoIS). With only 700 residents I bet it won't be hard to find out who works for the Government.--CastAStone|(talk) 15:21, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The town doesn't have a website, but Colleton County does. I'm emailing the Economic Development department as Wikinews, to ask them. -- Zanimum 15:41, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
They might need to check the post office first. There's a little bit of federal government that's in every town.--CastAStone|(talk) 16:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Very unlikely to be a postoffice, probably just a public computer in the local library. --Klork 17:48, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Why the local library? Internet service in Ontario, Canada libraries are provided by the municipial government, and in Nova Scotia, it's run by the province. While it's possible the federal government provides the internet service for US libraries, it's highly unlikely. -- Zanimum 18:18, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I lived in South Carolina earlier this decade. Local libraries run their own internet networks in the Palmetto State, but most libraries there were able to establish them with state and federal grants. Also, they must adhere to any regulations the state and federal government may pass regarding the Internet, since they are public facilities. - --Bdj95 20:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Folks, look at the whois info again. This is not a federal government network, but rather a state network. First, Federal government uses the .gov, not the .us TLD, and this one clearly shows that the orgname is the state. That rules out USDA, USPS, etc. More likely it's a school or library. Hwonder talk contribs 15:09, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reply

There's a USDA office, and a Resource & Conservation office in the area. -- Zanimum 14:38, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted edits available

Per Jensbn's request, I've restored the deleted entries - which I initially deleted after a request to do so to stop people from viewing the incorrect entry - and moved them a subpage of this talk page. The current version redirects to the talk page, but the 9 entries which I deleted are available in the history. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 15:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's a better link to the deleted edits. MisfitToys 21:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Dealing with the Vandals.

I don't have the authority to do anything but warn the vandals, which I will. Most of the IPs have been used before for vandalism. But there are a few problems with blocking them now.
2 of the IPs (User:12.32.91.80 and User:204.99.250.45) are from office supply stores in the Chicago area, indicating that someone went to a few stores to mess around with the pages on the demonstration computers. Another (User:167.206.128.33) is a college address in New York, meaning its likely at least somewhat dynamic, at least year to year, or another public PC. The other addresses are apparently single people, and I suggest an administrator do something about them. Consensus?--CastAStone|(talk) 16:28, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia needs to ban anonymous editors. There's just been too much of this nonsense. The latest vandalism has even been reported in the media [2] 23skidoo 17:51, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I concur with 23skidoo, this made the Drudge Report via Breitbart [3] Arm 18:38, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • I disagree about banning anonymous users. The good 99% might not take the time to create an account. The bad 1% (e.g., vandals) would readily create bogus Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo accounts and continue to vandalize. The end result would probably be a higher percentage of vandals than Wikipedia now has (same number of vandals, but fewer legitimate edits).
i agree completelyT ALK•QRC2006•¢ʘñ†®¡ß§ 19:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Are they Asding or Siling Vandals? And are you absolutely sure that Visigoths and Ostrogoths weren't responsible for this outrage?
  • What we need is a faster system for reporting and removing vandals. Leave the anonymous accounts, but make the warning process a bit more streamlined so that vandals are removed fast. A week ago I proposed a bot to help with this issue. --D 20:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It would be interesting to see what the actual percentage of anons who engage in vandalism is (percent of both total anons and of total vandals). --H-ko (Talk) 20:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It doesn't take any effort at all to make an account on wikipedia. It's incredibly easy and doesn't even require that an activation email be sent. Vandals and IPs used by vandals should be summarily banned for some period of time. If the IP is used by many people then put up a warning message saying that that IP has been banned from editing wikipedia and the reason why. The credibility of wikipedia is diminished every time nonsense like this happens and it needs to stop. Dr. Morbius 23:20, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Should we just leave this semi-protected, or unprotected? We already know to keep a close eye on it, but, as with main page featured articles, it makes sense to take advantage of all the new eyes that will be on it, many of which would take a shot at improving it if they could.--ragesoss 05:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll take a risk and semi it. -- Zanimum 17:42, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restoring talk page edits made by original vandal

You can find these in the history by searching through the IP user contributions...--CastAStone|(talk) 20:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I did one and noted RIP. I had been told by my friend on the phone, so I updated. My entire office talked about it the rest of the day. The next day, I hadn't seen anything on tv or news or paper, so I checked wiki, and it reverted to living. Perhaps I was the first one to screw it up and cause the whole problem, or was one of many that continued it. Either way, I shall restrict my own participation to Wiki to grammar and punctuation. wiki may contact me over the issue as necessary, but I hope they (Wp) won't ban the IP. 6:11EST 16march2007---RAH
  • BTW, the entry for 15:38EST 14march2007 was mine, if that helps clear any timeline issues up ---RAH

[edit] Thanks

Thanks to the recently posted hoax, Wikipedia has been "proven" yet again as a "unreliable source." Theophany 01:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is, in itself, a unreliable source. Otherwise, articles would reference other articles in Wikipedia. By the way, new comments go to the bottom. -- ReyBrujo 02:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
I think the media has grossly exaggerated the issue. It would be fair to blame wikipedia if the hoax had gone unnoticed and uncorrected for a fair amount of time, but the fact is that the hoax was discovered and corrected within an hour. I doubt many people actually had a chance to read the hoaxed article in that interval. In fact, I challenge anyone to find a single news source that actually read the article in its hoaxed state before it was corrected. From what I understand, the malicious hoaxer forwarded the article to the media, but specifically only the link to the by then already outdated article in the vandalised state, and no doubt because he knew his hoax would very soon be discovered and corrected, as in fact happened. What this whole thing really says about wikipedia is that while it can potentially be abused by anyone, its self-correcting abilities are remarkably quick in reverting vandalism and hoaxes. The only reason some wikipedians feel embarassed is that we're used to Wikipedia correcting that sort of abuse in minutes or even seconds. This slip took more than an hour to correct, but that's still nothing to be ashamed of. Jens Nielsen 16:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Everyone with a clue already knew (beyond doubt) that Wikipedia is not 100% reliable. If there were people who didn't already know that, then their learning of it via publicity over this event is a good thing. And for people to learn how quickly the error was detected and corrected, that's a good things, too. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Just saw the news on Yahoo! a while ago. /i didn't even notice anything wrong with the article when I peered over it. Wikipedia itself is not reliable because of the lack of sources on some pages, but nevertheless it is a reliable source to many. Nescio sed Scio 00:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
That's because we fixed it. -- Zanimum 19:57, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section About the Hoax should be included in the article

Given that this hoax will be noted as one of Wikipedia's worst moments, we should probably include a section in the article about it due to the intense media attention regarding this hoax. Jonyyeh 19:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

my first instinct is no, because it will encourage more vandalism. however, that would be censorship. also, considering the amount of recent change patrol people, 72 minutes, and the news coverage, it is significant in the fact that out of the 1000s of vandalisms per day, this one had quite an effect. the_undertow talk 21:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I think that it big enough news-wise to be put into the article. Jordan 22:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
The John Seigenthaler, Sr. article mentions the wikipedia controversy involving him. Why not this one? Dr. Morbius 22:53, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
I see news coverage about Wikipedia vandalism almost every month on Google Technology News. This isn't anything special, just another black eye for Wikipedia. SeLfkiLL 01:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. (And it isn't even that black an eye -- "there's no such thing as bad publicity".) There's no need whatsoever for a paragraph in the article, nor for us to feel any particularly egregious sense of shame or embarrassment over this. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:19, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
You've got to admit this is something different though. Did previous hoxes rate Snopes articles: [4], toplined CNN "Buzz" stories: [5], multiple Fox News cites: [6] and [7] (plus more), and Reuters: [8]? Sinbad has been effectively off the radar for years, and now all of a sudden he's receiving massive attention. - Richfife 01:44, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Do the people responsible for adding the hoax need to be branded vandals? It seems to me that there's a reasonable chance they didn't realise it was a lie. Λι(tc)Θlοг-Шιlε 22:21, 17 March 2007 (UTC)