@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ I gave an initial overview and summarised/showed/pointed out interesting paths/f
According to the Wikipedian community people adding references to Brazilian aardvarks or <inser-another-hoax here> preferably shall not publish at all.
Edit filters are not the ideal mechanism to deal with this type of disruption:
they can warn editors adding information that their contribution does not contain any references (or outright disallow such contributions), but that was pretty much it. %TODO look into all filters tagges as "hoaxing"
However, what edit filters can do more effectively is prevent someone from moving XXX pages to titles containing ``ON WHEELS'', thus sparing users the need to track down and undo these changes, allowing them to use their time more productively by for example fact checking unverified edits and thus (syn) reducing the number of aardvarks and increasing the overall credibility of the project.
However, what edit filters can do more effectively is prevent someone from moving XXX pages to titles containing ``ON WHEELS'', thus sparing users the need to track down and undo these changes, allowing them to use their time more productively by for example fact checking unverified edits and thus (syn) reducing the number of fake aardvarks and increasing the overall credibility of the project.
It is impressive how in under 20 years ``a bunch of nobodies created the world's greatest encyclopedia'' to quote Anrew Lih~\cite{}. %TODO verify how big is Wikipedia and whether it's the biggest collection ever.
This was possible, among other things, because there was one Wikipedia to which everybody contributed.
In May 2014 the US American magasine \textit{The New Yorker} published a story called ``How a Raccoon Became an Aardvark'' in its column ``Annals of Technology''~\cite{Randall2014}.
It tells an anecdote about a New York student who, some 6 years before, edited the Wikipedia article on ``coati'' (a member of the racoon family native to South and Central America) to state that the coati is ``also known as a Brazilian aardvark''.
It tells an anecdote about a New York student who, some 6 years before, edited the Wikipedia article on ``coati'' (a member of the racoon family native to South and Central America) to state that the coati is ``also known as [...] Brazilian aardvark''~\cite{Wikipedia:Coati}.
Now, this is exactly how Wikipedia works, right?
Anyone can edit and small contribution by small contribution the world's largest knowledge base is compiled.
Except, the kid made the thing up and published on Wikipedia an inside joke he had with his brother on their holiday trip to Brazil.
Unsourced pieces of information are not supposed to survive long on Wikipedia and he thought that the edit would be swiftly deleted.
Fast-forward to 2010, not only had the entry on ``coati'' not changed, but it cited a 2010 article by the newspaper the \textit{Telegraph} as an evidence.
In the meantime several newspapers, a YouTube video and a book published by the University of Chicago~\cite{} claimed that the coati was known as a Brazilan aardvark.
It proved not trivial to erase the piece/snippet from Wikipedia since there were all these other sources affirming the statement.
Fast-forward to 2014, not only had this piece of information on ``coati'' not changed, but it cited a 2010 article by the newspaper the \textit{Telegraph} as evidence~\cite{Wikipedia:CoatiEvidence}.
In the meantime, apparently several newspapers, a YouTube video and a book published by the University of Chicago~\cite{Henderson2013} claimed that the coati was known as a Brazilan aardvark.
It proved not trivial to erase the snippet from Wikipedia since there were all these other sources affirming the statement.
By then, it was not exactly false either: the coati \emph{was} known as ``Brazilian aardvark'', at least on the Internet.
Now, despite the fact that at any given moment/on the whole Wikipedia may contain more or less the same amount of errors as the encyclopedia Britanica, %TODO quote!
the stories like the one above are precisely why it is still maintained that information on Wikipedia cannot be trusted and it cannot be used as a serious bibliographic reference.
Now, despite various accounts that Wikipedia seems to be just as accurate and more complete than the encyclopedia Britanica~\cite{}, %TODO quote!
the stories like the one above are precisely why it is still maintained that information on Wikipedia cannot be trustedi, or used as a serious bibliographic reference.
%TODO transition is somewhat jumpy
The Wikipedian community is well-aware of their project's poor reliability reputation and has a long standing history of quality control processes.
