The battle to destroy Wikipedia's biggest sockpuppet army - Polidicks

[url]http://www.dailydot.com/lifestyle/wikipedia-sockpuppet-investigation-largest-network-history-wiki-pr/[/url] (warning, long read) [quote=The Daily Dot]Wikipedia editor and self-professed “bird geek” DocTree spends most of his time on the world’s largest encyclopedia editing the pages for long-dead ornithologists. So it was somewhat unusual when, in August 2012, he found himself working on the page for “CyberSafe,” a high-tech digital encryption company based out of Middlesex, England, with a pronounced dearth of ornithological relevance. Someone on Wikipedia had nominated the page for deletion, and DocTree, who sometimes participates in deletion discussions on topics that fall outside his interests, decided to pitch in. There are a number of possible reasons for a Wikipedia page to be deleted, but the most common justification is that it lacks “notability.” This is a loose standard that essentially asks the question: Is this subject important enough for a Wikipedia article? One metric editors use are the citations at the bottom of the page. The idea is that, if a subject has been reported on thoroughly by reputable sources--preferably a seasoned news organization or publisher—then it probably deserves an article. At first glance, the CyberSafe page seemed to meet Wikipedia’s notability requirements. Every fact was backed up with citations to multiple news outlets. Then DocTree dutifully clicked on the links. The facade quickly crumbled. “None of the references really dealt with CyberSafe,” DocTree told the Daily Dot. “The sources dealt with Internet security in general, but not CyberSafe.” Whoever had created the page had done so with the assumption that most people wouldn’t bother actually clicking on the citations. That was the first sign that something was off, but things got weirder. Numerous people showed up to defend CyberSafe, to argue that it shouldn’t be deleted. If you checked their editing history, however, you found either nothing at all or a series of edits to pages that fit the profile of CyberSafe—small companies or individuals who likely didn’t warrant Wikipedia pages. These CyberSafe defenders made very similar arguments, almost as if they were written by the same person. “It was all smoke and mirrors,” said DocTree. “When I saw how similar the arguments were, it just didn’t look right.”[/quote]

This is why you always check the citations and not the Wikipedia article itself. This is why schools should teach students to check for citations instead of just outright banning the use of Wikipedia.

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;42469856]This is why you always check the citations and not the Wikipedia article itself. This is why schools should teach students to check for citations instead of just outright banning the use of Wikipedia.[/QUOTE] How to get through college and high school: Cite Wikipedia citations

[QUOTE=areolop;42469939]How to get through college and high school: Cite Wikipedia citations[/QUOTE] You joke, but stuff Wikipedia articles cite are actually pretty good starting points for your own research on something.

[QUOTE=areolop;42469939]How to get through college and high school: Cite Wikipedia citations[/QUOTE] If you're using wikipedia to look for sources and citations while in college, you're doing a shit job for your paper when you could use the college's library system.

Remember that article on the war that never actually happened

[QUOTE=Liem;42469971]Remember that article on the war that never actually happened[/QUOTE] It's still there if I recall, but has a big uneditable banner saying "this is a satire page"

[QUOTE=Liem;42469971]Remember that article on the war that never actually happened[/QUOTE] Got a link?

Using Wikipedia for a serious college paper is a priority ticket to a C

[QUOTE=Thomo_UK;42470007]Got a link?[/QUOTE] [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ned_Scott/Upper_Peninsula_War[/url]

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42469988]It's still there if I recall, but has a big uneditable banner saying "this is a satire page"[/QUOTE] There's also a street in Berlin that got a nickname in hundreds of articles and news out of an experiment.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42469963]If you're using wikipedia to look for sources and citations while in college, you're doing a shit job for your paper when you could use the college's library system.[/QUOTE] That depends on your topic. My college library has access to tons of peer reviewed journals, which is great but even then some esoteric subjects are lacking. For example in my old botany class when doing research on ethnobotanical uses for specific plants the library system was useless, but wikipedia had some great jumping off points.

[QUOTE=Winner;42470313]"Trained expert" as in "someone with a computer"[/QUOTE] Not true! I just used my trained expertise to tell that your OS is Windows 7 and you're running google Chrome! It's a laborious process

[QUOTE=areolop;42469939]How to get through college and high school: Cite Wikipedia citations[/QUOTE] Somebody did that my college (or high school for the Americans) - unfortunately they'd failed to realise once of the sources they'd copied the citation for was in french...

[QUOTE=Camundongo;42471170]Somebody did that my college (or high school for the Americans) - unfortunately they'd failed to realise once of the sources they'd copied the citation for was in french...[/QUOTE] Well that sounds like their own damn fault.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42469963]If you're using wikipedia to look for sources and citations while in college, you're doing a shit job for your paper when you could use the college's library system.[/QUOTE] the library is so far awayyyyy :(

[QUOTE=Banned?;42471185]Well that sounds like their own damn fault.[/QUOTE] Well yeah obviously, but it was hilarious when our teacher asked him to come up to front of the class to read out the source :v:

If I fail a class I'm not allowed to copy the noted from the failed semester. They call it self fucking plagiarism and tell you to start over from scratch.

All I do is copy from Wikipedia but change words to make it sound more personal to the way I write and speak. Never got called out on it, but I never got a A* for it because I am one of those who is straight to the point, I can't write 1,000 words when I could say it in 300, it's horrid.

[QUOTE=pentium;42471232]If I fail a class I'm not allowed to copy the noted from the failed semester. They call it self fucking plagiarism and tell you to start over from scratch.[/QUOTE] Uhhh...that is plagiarism, even if it is your own shit you have to reference it properly. It's an existing work after all. [editline]10th October 2013[/editline] Now that I think about it, most of the work for a wiki project I had to do in my first year of my course referenced things from Wikipedia :v: Obviously the text I attached the reference to was my own, but they never called me out on that. Check them cites and you be aight.

[QUOTE=Winner;42471073]What the fuck how did you do that Do you know where I live??[/QUOTE] In the United States of course!!! Even a rookie hacker without my leet skills could have figured that one out

[QUOTE=Venezuelan;42471203]the library is so far awayyyyy :([/QUOTE] i don't know how it works at your school, but i think most of them have online access to lots of academic databases like JSTOR and CredoReference as long as you're on campus or have a student login.

[QUOTE=postmanX3;42471480]i don't know how it works at your school, but i think most of them have online access to lots of academic databases like JSTOR and CredoReference as long as you're on campus or have a student login.[/QUOTE] When I was at my local uni studying Applied Physics, their online journal service had no subscriptions to any physics journals, but did have a subscription to Applied Poultry Science. Which makes me wonder if you can get theoretical poultry science...

[quote]Uhhh...that is plagiarism, even if it is your own shit you have to reference it properly. It's an existing work after all.[/quote] I have projects I got good fucking marks on. If it's OK for them once then they should have no problem with the same person submitting it again for the same assignment. It's not even some paper that is going towards a degree. It's just one of those bullshit assignments you are given in between real projects.

[QUOTE=pentium;42471525]I have projects I got good fucking marks on. If it's OK for them once then they should have no problem with the same person submitting it again for the same assignment. It's not even some paper that is going towards a degree. It's just one of those bullshit assignments you are given in between real projects.[/QUOTE] Alternatively, you could... y'know... [i]not fail in the first place[/i] I get the frustration, though. On topic, though: I would have expected a site that isn't completely anonymous, like Wikipedia (it has registered users) to not have these kinds of things happen. This reminds me of samefagging on 4Chan, but that only happens because of the total anonymity. Never thought it could have an application on Wikipedia.

[QUOTE=pentium;42471525]I have projects I got good fucking marks on. If it's OK for them once then they should have no problem with the same person submitting it again for the same assignment. It's not even some paper that is going towards a degree. It's just one of those bullshit assignments you are given in between real projects.[/QUOTE] It's annoying, but it is still an existing work that has been completed and submitted. It doesn't hurt to just chuck a reference in to it (then if they ask why, just say it's an existing work and I'm trying to avoid plagiarism).

[QUOTE=Electrocuter;42469856]This is why you always check the citations and not the Wikipedia article itself. This is why schools should teach students to check for citations instead of just outright banning the use of Wikipedia.[/QUOTE] Or you can't trust them according to OP :v:

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;42469963]If you're using wikipedia to look for sources and citations while in college, you're doing a shit job for your paper when you could use the college's library system.[/QUOTE] The quality of libraries are not a universal constant

[quote]Alternatively, you could... y'know... not fail in the first place[/quote] You make it sound like I'm TRYING to fail my english courses.

Not that just entering "Crusades" into Wikipedia and copying the first three paragraphs in your own words is the right thing to do [editline]9th October 2013[/editline] Fucking pentium