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Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#11

Post by rsynnott »

porthz wrote: post #9
mellosouls wrote: post #8

One of the weaker points of Wikipedia is the way editors lazily refer to journalistic "reliable" sources as authoritative when a significant amount of the time the journalist is lazily using WP as their own source. Just a couple of these circular references build up a circumstantial base of "evidence" which is then itself used to bolster the original weak claims which often reflect nothing more than an editorial or j…

Not only WP: An increasing amount of articles just cite "sources say" or "an unnamed U.S. intelligence official says". Then the entire world press copies the article within hours. Even Reuters and AP have adopted the practice. Then Wikipedia cites the narrative as the truth.

> An increasing amount of articles just cite "sources say" or "an unnamed U.S. intelligence official says"

Hold on, when is it you think that newspapers did _not_ do this?

In general, if a paper is writing about anything vaguely contentious, it will use unnamed sources; if it names its sources then its sources won't stay sources for long, and the media will become little more than a system for regurgitating press releases. It is always worked this way; this isn't new.

(There was a fun bit in "Yes Minister" where the minister, while leaking something, was offended that the journalist wanted to use "sources" instead of "sources close to the Prime Minister" to attribute his leak...)

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#12

Post by RugnirViking »

paleotrope wrote: post #2

What's strange is the real hoaxer is never identified beyond his fist name.

They are though? They have the name Alan MacMasters, same as the fake inventor

> "Alan MacMasters, 30, is an aerospace engineer from London "and not the inventor of the toaster", he assures me with a giggle. "You shouldn't just believe everything you read on the internet."

> I feel nervous about the possibility of falling prey to another prank. So I ask Alan to send me a photo of his passport, which he does. He is not lying: even if he lacks the voluminous quiff of his namesake, he really is Alan MacMasters

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#13

Post by bombcar »

RugnirViking wrote: post #12
paleotrope wrote: post #2

What's strange is the real hoaxer is never identified beyond his fist name.

They are though? They have the name Alan MacMasters, same as the fake inventor > "Alan MacMasters, 30, is an aerospace engineer from London "and not the inventor of the toaster", he assures me with a giggle. "You shouldn't just believe everything you read on the internet." > I feel nervous about the possibility of falling prey to another prank. So I ask Alan to send me a photo of his passport, which he does. He is no…

The "hoaxer" was Alan's friend Alex.

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#15

Post by netrus »

rsynnott wrote: post #11
porthz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only WP: An increasing amount of articles just cite "sources say" or "an unnamed U.S. intelligence official says". Then the entire world press copies the article within hours. Even Reuters and AP have adopted the practice. Then Wikipedia cites the narrative as the truth.

> An increasing amount of articles just cite "sources say" or "an unnamed U.S. intelligence official says" Hold on, when is it you think that newspapers did _not_ do this? In general, if a paper is writing about anything vaguely contentious, it will use unnamed sources; if it names its sources then its sources won't stay sources for long, and the media will become little more than a system for regurgitating press rel…

It's a shame that stuff like that is (at least in my experience) not taught in school. Years of lurking on Twitter have taught me about background-talks, "sources close to XYZ", how leaks, PR releases, and whistleblowing work [0] - and it really adds to correctly judging the stories you read. Of course, it requires quite a bit of trust in the media you consume.

[0] and submarines, of course ;)

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#16

Post by teddyh »

Nihilartikel wrote: post #6
europeanguy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good. Let's not idolize vandals.

Vandal maybe, but another perspective would be that they are playing the role of an Epistemological Chaos Monkey, providing fitness tests to the worldwide bullshit filter.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Do_not_disrupt_Wikip...

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#17

Post by teddyh »

mellosouls wrote: post #8

One of the weaker points of Wikipedia is the way editors lazily refer to journalistic "reliable" sources as authoritative when a significant amount of the time the journalist is lazily using WP as their own source. Just a couple of these circular references build up a circumstantial base of "evidence" which is then itself used to bolster the original weak claims which often reflect nothing more than an editorial or j…

There is no realistic better alternative which does not install a de facto Ministry of Truth.

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#18

Post by ghaff »

rsynnott wrote: post #10
mellosouls wrote: post #8

One of the weaker points of Wikipedia is the way editors lazily refer to journalistic "reliable" sources as authoritative when a significant amount of the time the journalist is lazily using WP as their own source. Just a couple of these circular references build up a circumstantial base of "evidence" which is then itself used to bolster the original weak claims which often reflect nothing more than an editorial or j…

Experienced wikipedia editors are often pretty good at catching this circular sourcing on important articles, but, yeah, it's definitely much more of a problem for more obscure things like the history of toasters. Years ago I noticed that the article for the mimic octopus said that it mimicked various things, including the "venomous sole" (!) with a citation that looked suspiciously similar to the wikipedia article.…

A few years ago, for a book, I ended up researching the history of steel/tin cans among other things. There were a bunch of online resources, including Wikipedia, that all parroted essentially the same storyline. However, a couple of older books I found suggested the history was actually a fair bit older and which struck me, at any rate, as more likely.

It was a minor point and I wasn't going to dig deeper but it does show how at least (possibly) simplified/incomplete narratives drive out more complicated histories.

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#19

Post by smaudet »

rsynnott wrote: post #11
porthz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only WP: An increasing amount of articles just cite "sources say" or "an unnamed U.S. intelligence official says". Then the entire world press copies the article within hours. Even Reuters and AP have adopted the practice. Then Wikipedia cites the narrative as the truth.

> An increasing amount of articles just cite "sources say" or "an unnamed U.S. intelligence official says" Hold on, when is it you think that newspapers did _not_ do this? In general, if a paper is writing about anything vaguely contentious, it will use unnamed sources; if it names its sources then its sources won't stay sources for long, and the media will become little more than a system for regurgitating press rel…

I remember learning about firsthand and secondary sources. Wikipedia is not a primary encyclopedia, its a secondary source.

Just like journalism is full of individuals paid off or paid to say (or not) something (sometimes blantantly untrue), wikipedia has plenty of inaccurate or false information.

So, it used to be I would use wikipedia as a type of third hand source - find information on a topic, then dig through it's references, then list Wikipedia as a source that I had used, but never quote Wikipedia.

The problem being there are few encyclopedic sources on the internet to begin with, so when the articles start sourcing the article aggregator, then the quality is bound to go down the tubes as well.

Re: Alan MacMasters: How the great toaster hoax was exposed

#20

Post by TEP_Kim_Il_Sung »

rsynnott wrote: post #10
mellosouls wrote: post #8

One of the weaker points of Wikipedia is the way editors lazily refer to journalistic "reliable" sources as authoritative when a significant amount of the time the journalist is lazily using WP as their own source. Just a couple of these circular references build up a circumstantial base of "evidence" which is then itself used to bolster the original weak claims which often reflect nothing more than an editorial or j…

Experienced wikipedia editors are often pretty good at catching this circular sourcing on important articles, but, yeah, it's definitely much more of a problem for more obscure things like the history of toasters. Years ago I noticed that the article for the mimic octopus said that it mimicked various things, including the "venomous sole" (!) with a citation that looked suspiciously similar to the wikipedia article.…

For over a decade, wikipedia credited some guy with inventing a special type of blimp, based on some ill-researched news article. About a year ago the article was checked and removed, and then that guy actually invented a blimp, but now wikipedia is refusing to reinstate the article.
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