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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

#41

Post by vanderZwan »

milesskorpen wrote: post #38
vanderZwan wrote: post #33

Is that a tie wrap around the power cord of that 1909 toaster pictured at the end of the article? How old are those ? EDIT: Wikipedia (... yeah I know) says tie wraps were invented somewhere between 1956 and 1958. So the picture cannot be the earliest picture of the earliest toaster either I guess? Goodness, I do not envy historians. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_tie

It could be a picture of the earliest toaster, but the tie was added at a later date. No claim it's original packaging! I imagine it's from a museum or collection and you don't want the cord dangling around.

Yeah, something like that must have happened.

I was not questioning the legitimacy of the toaster itself. Just thought it would be ironic if they think this is an "original" picture of the earliest toaster because it's grainy and black and white, but didn't realize this particular photo could not have been taken earlier than in the late fifties due to the tie wrap.

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

#42

Post by Ardon »

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…

When I was bored in school I ran down the original source for the claim on the Honey Badger wikipedia page that they can take several bullets and keep coming.

It turns out that the source was a book, which was citing a news story, which was about a letter a farmer had written in. I recall tagging this in the backed with 'weak source' (or something).

Checking back now, the claim has been changed to: "The only sure way of killing them quickly is through a blow to the skull with a club or a shot to the head with a gun, as their skin is almost impervious to arrows and spears."

Which is more plausible a claim than the original, and I'm absolutely prepared to believe killing a Honey Badger with arrows is hard, but the source still isn't actually proving that.

Anyway it was a useful lesson for younger me about Wikipedia.

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

#43

Post by mellosouls »

Arjuna wrote: post #14

For those interested, this is an archive of the contrived Wikipedia article: Alan MacMasters https://archive.ph/IL2ay

And the current link, which redirects to a "Reliability of Wikipedia" article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_MacMasters

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

#44

Post by ghaff »

derefr wrote: post #40
SamBam wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, to correct this: it's highly recommended by Wikipedia to use secondary sources where possible, not primary, precisely for this reason. "Original research" is exactly the opposite of what you mean, original research in the context of Wikipedia generally means citing primary sources. The "research" that is original is the interpretation of the raw data (the primary sources). The preferred approach is to cite…

This applies to editorial statements (opinions, interpretations); but if you're just quoting blunt facts, a primary source is preferable, no? E.g. if you're citing a statistic, it's better to cite the study that supplied the statistic, than to cite a science-journalistic review of said study. You can then cite some statement the review made to put the statistic in context; but that should be a separate, second citati…

>but if you're just quoting blunt facts, a primary source is preferable, no?

At least in theory, no it's not, per Wikipedia policy. Now, in practice, if you reference some government dataset for a non-controversial fact like the area of a state, only the most procedural whackjob admin is going to flag it. But, in general, you're not supposed to use primary sources.

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

#45

Post by rsynnott »

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung wrote: post #20
rsynnott wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I mean, I think imaginary special blimps fit into the same space as non-existent fish; it's exactly the sort of thing that Wikipedia's defense mechanisms don't work for, largely due to lack of interest.

(I do find the concept of a venomous sole fascinating, though. How would that work? Would it _bite_ people? They're seabed-dwelling flatfish!)

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

#46

Post by monkpit »

bombcar wrote: post #13
RugnirViking wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Confusingly, the people in this story are named Adam, Alan, and Alex.

Alex did the first actual edit.

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

#47

Post by tedunangst »

xbmcuser wrote: post #23
bombcar wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "hoaxer" was Alan's friend Alex.

No Alex just changed the name it was Alan that embellished and perpetuated for it years after that

Which article did you read?

> Alex felt mischievous, and wondered how far his prank could go. He asked himself what would happen if he created a Wikipedia article entirely devoted to the supposed inventor of the toaster.

> To illustrate it, Alex grabbed a photo of himself and edited it to look like an image from the 1800s - this was the very same photo that, years later, would catch Adam's eye.

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

#48

Post by gumby »

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…

I just fixed a bug like that in Wikipedia: atmospheric methane lifetime is widely quoted as being "a half life of 9.1 years". That appears in the wikipedia, with a reference to a massive document (part of IPCC's AR5) which in fact makes no such claim (about a half life I mean). But once it's entered the Zeitgeist, can the false assumption be eradicated?

(I only noticed this because the 9.1 y estimate may no longer be valid, and we are putting together a paper on the subject.)

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

#49

Post by philistine »

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…

Fifteen years ago, someone poorly read the 1999 Guiness book of records and wrongly concluded that Guiness called the Game Boy Camera the world's smallest digital camera. Aside from the fact that Guiness World Records are a pile of crap and untrusthworthy, it made no such claim. To the contrary, it claimed other digital cameras as the smallest.

Now think, how many time have you heard that fact when reading retrospectives on Game Boy, or watching Youtube videos?

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