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Comment by Analemma_ | Hacker News Reader

The key point to remember is that Wikiepedia's goal is "verifiability, not truth". With that one fact they neatly sidestep a lot of the arguments from cranks and whatnot about including this or that fringe view out of a commitment to "truth". Truth isn't their goal: Wikipedia is meant to be an accumulation of best-guess knowledge at the current time. It may seem like a lower goal, but that's all any encyclopedia was ever supposed to be.

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Given that almost all sources that constitute verifiability will happily copy and paste anything that is in wikipedia, it is arbitrary what is verifiable.

If is long enouh in there it will never get out.

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-a-raccoon-became...

The brazilian aardvark is an interesting example because it created a genuine fact. It is now also known as the brazilian Aardvark with no caveats. It is more concerning if this happens with statements that aren't as self fulfilling. For example, saying that Elvis is alive to enough people doesn't somehow make it so.

It's possible nowadays with a bit of effort to create entirely new "facts" via a one-two shuffle between news sources and Wikipedia.

First, you publish an article on some news source, asserting the fact.

Then you update Wikipedia with that fact, citing your own article.

Other news sources check Wikipedia, find your new fact, and incorporate it into their own articles. Now you have a bunch of extra sources for your Wikipedia article.

This is called Circular Reporting[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reporting

And the requisite xkcd joke, in which it is called citogenesis. (Not to be confused with cytogenesis.)

https://m.xkcd.com/978/

And, of course, this then made its way to Wikipedia too:

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

Well played, sir.

Except that any reputable "news source" won't let random people post stories with made up facts - and Wikipedia editors will shoot down disreputable sources such as your personal own blog.

Yes, but you just need it to survive long enough to get quoted somewhere more reputable.

Illustrated very well by 'How to reply' in pt.4:

> Point out that if Wikipedia had been around at the time of Galileo, it would have had a duty to report the claims of the Catholic church as fact, without qualification, despite the conspiracy that undoubtedly existed.

Love to see you making the point. Although we can hardly believe that there are still someone believing in the flat world, telling them the truth/fact does not help, as we perhaps once thought advices from our parents are not genuinely made for the sake of us.

Ultimately, we learn by reading and experiencing, not by being told. Hence, wikiepedia's goal to provide verifiable information makes the trick. It is the best way to allow us to explore and learn, and hence form our belief about the truth.

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