I didn't like it the moment I heard this, but now contrarian mode has kicked in:
Why isn't this destruction of essential information infrastructure? Why isn't this a 'fuck you' to the millions of volunteer hours W is based on? Why isn't this potentially infecting millions of minds with lies?
Why isn't this absolutely deplorable?
(COI Statement: i am a wikipedia editor for 15+ years, I am a member of my local wikimedia chapter)
Because it doesn't scale. Unlike spam / fake news, the effort to take down something like this is smaller than the effort of creating it.
Now sadly when people start using GPT-4 for the same thing, the balance changes, and we're not far from that..I'm much more worried about that.
It may be deemed "vandalism" by seasoned editors, though Arb might chose more salient descriptors.
I don't recall right now what the legal opinion on destruction of data is, ie. irrecoverable erasure in the most trivial case, and I think they wouldn't introduce specific new laws around IT systems if it were that easy. But if it is, then analogies from destruction to somewhat impeding property is well precedented (in .de) even if it's entirely reversable in theory.
1mil words isn't that much work though, so I'd consider this a fairly quick end and not exactly news.
The thing to remember is to check the cited sources whenever the information is remotely important to you.
See https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday... or this from Charles Seife:
"Wikipedia is like an old and eccentric uncle. He can be a lot of fun—over the years he's seen a lot, and he can tell a great story. He's also no dummy; he's accumulated a lot of information and has some strong opinions about what he's gathered. You can learn quite a bit from him. But take everything he says with a grain of salt. A lot of the things he thinks he knows for sure aren't quite right, or are taken out of context. And when it comes down to it, sometimes he believes things that are a little bit, well, nuts. If it ever matters to you whether something he said is real or fictional, it's crucial to check it out with a more reliable source."
—Charles Seife, Virtual Unreality, Appendix, "The top ten dicta of the internet skeptic", Dictum no. 1.
That's not merely destruction but creation with volume.
E.g. The CCP recently declared that Hong Kong was never a colony of the UK, but "under ruling of a colonial government" [1]
1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-61810263
Are we aware that in China, people mostly support Russia's invasion to Ukraine because of state level propaganda?
“A colony of the UK” vs “under the ruling of a colonial government” are pretty similar.
Given that the basis of the UK’s colonization of Hong Kong was based on a treaty granting it control over the territory for 150 years, after which it was returned to China. The Chinese portrayal seems apt, given that it was a temporary, though long, occupation.
Is this supposed to be a difference of fact or a difference of perspective? Colonies are ruled by colonial governments.
edit: e.g. if I kidnap a woman and force her to marry me, her family may not want to refer to her as my ex-wife after they get her back.
I don’t really understand the strenuous objection to this. This seems less like “1984-style rewriting of history” and more like completely routine nationalism that you see all around the world.
The thing is, in cz.WP they could do that if they want.
> Are we aware that in China, people mostly support Russia's invasion to Ukraine because of state level propaganda?
I cannot say that because of state propaganda I became aware of that. But I sense that you are low key shilling, no offence, so yeah
To be clear: The Russian Govt invasion of Ukraine is awful. They are completely in the wrong. Putin needs to go and another strong man duplicate must not replace him. Don’t get me started on how bad the CCP is!
Are you aware that in USA people mostly supported Middle East invasion because of state-level propaganda? China isn't an outlier here.
lol
Wikipedia, despite all odds, has proven the most effective distributor of facts of our time. Shame on those who undermine its credibility.
Let us not validate the concept by embracing the term. It is a weasel word for people who want to promote their own flavor of misinformation.
As far as Wikipedia goes, this shows a loophole that needs to be closed. I'm amused by it - I can also understand why others are not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_Tone
But the story is perfectly real: the link to the community discussion on Wikipedia checks out.
Chinese state media do enjoy reporting – often intelligently – on Wikipedia's foibles (I've been quoted by them a number of times). And I have sometimes wished Western media were equally diligent about digging up stories like this, rather than always reflexively singing Wikipedia's praises. Wikipedia would actually profit from the scrutiny, as I and some Signpost colleagues pointed out at the 2015 WikiConference:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Journalism_and_the_o...
(The Signpost is the English Wikipedia's community newspaper, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost )
But it is also clear that this Sixth Tone article is designed to support a political narrative. I would not completely exclude the possibility that it was a state-sponsored effort. The apology the user posted (in Chinese) on the English Wikipedia (someone linked it below) does read quite wooden (I had DeepL translate it). On the other hand, this may simply reflect cultural differences.
I am not saying that this is funny or anything, but I feel like it's irrelevant. I assume many articles contain lies or are downright fabricated. This just confirms my assumption, and makes me think of how many things like this one are left to discover yet.
I would not believe anyone who claimed they did not believe something they read online. What is the distinction between online and offline these days as a source of information?
It made sense when online was a bunch of random people with no businesses or editors behind it. But when all major organizations and institutions have an online presence, it seems meaningless to differentiate online and offline.
Might be wrong, but both the Twilight series and 50 Shades of Gray series were initially fan fiction pieces by housewives who published their work on blogs.
Alternate historical fiction is a very popular genre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...
There's more or less a competition for them.
Some people really love to write. She must have gotten incredibly lost in her fictional world. I can only imagine it must have been the case here, and at some point it just happened to be that the medium she used was Wikipedia becuase that's where it all started for unrelated reasons.
I don't think Wikipedia is as closely vetted as we assume. For one, it's just so much cheaper to create content than it is to verify it. It's pretty amazing that Wikipedia is generally as high quality as it is with this in mind. And one reason why is that I imagine these types of bad actors (vandals making convincing edits just to be a jerk) are relatively rare.
I reckon most of Wikipedia's bad edits come from low-effort vandals and people trying to game high-value articles that have lots of eyeballs.
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/wikipedia-bicholim-conflict...
Or the Amelia Bedelia hoax?
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/amelia-bedelia-wikipedia-ho...
More here:
https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio...
Admin noticeboard thread:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Adminis...
I find that in practice, the scary part is that it is not so impressive and that the thousand eyes are largely a lie.
All too often have I seen such things go on for a long time without anyone noticing, or perhaps many noticing, but not being motivated to investigate and call out, or perhaps many even calling out, but their calls going unanswered.
If you work in a commercial publisher, there's less oversight.
Do you? When you say you see such things going on without anybody noticing, presumably you noticed?
[0] I don't generally edit articles on politically-sensitive topics. They are wargrounds, patrolled by tough gatekeepers. I take any information in WP about current affairs with a bushel of salt. But it's still better than, for example, mainstream media.
As a not-so-far-fetched example, remember that QAnon started out as a similar sort of 'blended reality fiction' (before it was likely overtaken by state-level propaganda agents). The only difference is that QAnon was based on giving a new interpretation to reputable third-party texts, while this goes one step further to actually fabricate seemingly original texts by a reputable source - I'd argue that's even worse.
That's eg why financial newspapers often stick closer to the truth: their readers want to be able to play the markets, so need something with a bit of a reality check, instead of just playing to their ideological preferences only.
History in an ideal world tries to record what happened.
But realistically, history is a tool for politics.
But judging by the heavy downvotes of your comment, that fact doesn’t seem to be popular.
Is there anything like this?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/aug/26/shock-an-aw-...
Perhaps proposals from the RFC will be renewed in light of this, though it's not the same situation as the Chinese Wikipedia isn't really small. It's known for questionable circumstances regarding adminship and other user behaviour, though, and is generally quite insular. So, unsurprising that this story hasn't received much attention outside of Chinese Wikipedia or news. On-wiki, the only pages for it currently are that on zhwiki and a corresponding page on English Wikipedia with a brief summary.[1]
Also, enwiki's own newspaper has a more informed article on the Scots incident,[2] also with some discussion (there's also an HN post). By the way, I remember an article or Wikipedia page about how journalism about Wikipedia persistently lacks nuance or understanding of its customs (basically a community-wide Gell-Mann amnesia effect), but can't find it now...anyone happen to just know it?
[0] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Large_s...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fabricated_articles_...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
That's the similarity.
It's like saying you don't see any similarity between Maradona and Messi, other than both of them being very successful Argentinian players.
They do not exist. First a Hungarian aristocrat was hoodwinked by some locals for money in Egypt in the 1930s, then a Hungarian student spending two semesters Cairo in the 1960s rewarmed the issue to prove his worth and successfully sold himself as an expert of all things Arabic in Hungary -- he never managed to get even a degree -- then finally in the nineties a far right weekly dug up the story for nationalistic purposes.
Finally an expedition was sent in 2006-2007 which have found with absolute surety these people do not exist. Their report is linked from wikipedia.
I tried to correct the article, I tried to delete the article, it was refused saying it's notorious enough to have an article on Wikipedia ... ... ... seriously?
Similarly, Hungarian prehistory on Wikipedia is completely outdated. Most of the "primary sources" it lists are completely unreliable, they were not even written with the intent of being reliable history wise (the The Annals of Fulda and The Annals of St-Bertin being remarkable exceptions). It notes "their reliability ... is suspect" ignoring Tamás Hölbling absolutely tearing them apart in 2010 in his two volume massive source criticism book. They are much closer to a comic book today than a historical book. It completely omits all the remarkable archaeogenetic findings since 2008. It completely ignores an absolutely groundbreaking symposium held in 1999 (they brought together researchers Indo-European and Uralic both archeological and linguistic, this was never done before), second edition can be found at https://www.sgr.fi/sust/SUST242.pdf . Overall, the Wikipedia article reflects the scientific consensus of the 1970s or so.
I tried to fix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Abdallah_Jayhani because Gayhani is incorrect, one spelling which could be used is Ğayhānī (eg https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/islm.1998.75....) it got reverted with "The other names in the lead are not supposed to have custom alphabets or whatever they're called." Whatever, eh? But hilariously enough, Wikipedia itself has an article on the romanization of Persian and you can check that article and see for yourself that "G" in itself is never used to transliterate a persian letter no matter which scheme you pick... but whatever!
I gave up on trying to fix Wikipedia.
You should read sources on how the jewish americans helped black americans. The sources flat out state that During the period Jewish American's did nothing to help black americans during the segregation and at times actively encouraged it.
From ~1942 to 1945, there are no entries, for example. I know it's kinda covered in the Timeline of WW2 article, but the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese are not mentioned.
Whitewashing is real on Wikipedia. I know its a tired meme, but you really do need to do your own research nowadays.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Japanese_history#2...
Why would you bring that particular topic up out of the blue?
This is not the full story, she originally said the motive was to win online debates with wikipedia references (created by her alias account)
Scenario simulations based on eu4, hoi4 battles (possibly with mods), both teams would setoff by a historical event, also external events would affect the progress.
It's a somewhat popular online sport & sub-culture in China. People go to extremes for historical "accuracy" or just for the sake of it. Tons of memes are generated without people noticing.
In this example, Zhemao can claim something like "I should have extra 2000 silver starting at my castle because check out this wikipedia article". She surely have played many games in her favor.
Her apology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E6%8A%98%E6%AF%9B
But those illustrations could be full of lies just the same?
I don't think I've ever seen that claim before. It's... maybe true of some articles.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tl%C3%B6n,_Uqbar,_Orbis_Tertiu...
Such a fantastical lie wrapped around such utter banality; surely this will warrant her own Wikipedia article.
https://www.google.com/search?q=scots+Wikipedia+brony&oq=sco...
It's working.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/03/china-explained-sixth-t...
Zhemao said she made most of her fake entries to fill the gaps left by her first couple of entries she edited. “As the saying goes, in order to tell a lie, you must tell more lies. I was reluctant to delete the hundreds of thousands of words I wrote, but as a result, I wound up losing millions of words, and a circle of academic friends collapsed,” she wrote. “The trouble I’ve caused is hard to make up for, so maybe a permanent ban is the only option. My current knowledge is not enough to make a living, so in the future I will learn a craft, work honestly, and not do nebulous things like this any more.”
This is what I am seing on Twitter linking the above article. A good additional information.
I'm not implying that she intended anything of that sort (although some of the other comments suggest that she may have used the fabrications to her advantage in smaller settings), but that her actions could have ended up producing similar results.
This is decidedly different from deliberate world-building that takes inspiration from the real and mixes it with the fictional, like what Tolkien did. It would have been exponentially harder to get anyone to care about her stories if they hadn't come with the wikipedia veneer (somewhat sadly, it might be easier for her now that she got global media attention).
That might have been the goal all along.
