How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
That is debatable, Reddit has been conned a lot in the past.
But one error when trying to con the site seems to be too much information: many users apparently love snooping around and digging (and are pretty good at it), so giving more information initially makes claims more credible, but also gives more strings on which users can pull risking unraveling the whole thing.
Furthermore, there's a high level of dependency on the subreddit in which things go "viral", some subreddits are far more credulous than others (and credulity depends on the subject matter as well, you can get both /r/atheism and /r/libertarian to lap up claims unchecked, but it's unlikely the same claim will work on both) (this also means hoaxes are far more likely to unravel as they spread outside of a given subreddit and get wider exposure in the community)
Also every once and a while a hoax reaches the front page, usually some highly suspect family situation or someone finding a treasure chest in their basement and asking reddit what to do.
Not once have I seen the Reddit jab helpful. I've only seen it superfluous and petty. I like people saying "Please keep on topic," but why jab another community? I don't even use Reddit.
I say this hoping it helps people simply remind others of this community's norms without needlessly jabbing others.
It is a jab.
> It's just different community norms.
There are no "community norms" for reddit, each subreddit has its own norms and things which work in one may get all your comments mod-deleted in an other.
I think the pro-business mindset helps as well. People start complaining when the depth that they remember isn't present in the discussions of the internet community (sometimes the gap is only perception/nostalgia).
I am pretty much a poster child for someone who threatens HN culture. While I am deeply interested in the intersection of computers and human enterprise, I came over from Reddit, and I don't have any practical experience to speak of. There are many times here (or in /r/askscience) when someone leaves an opening for a joke and I feel like I just have to make it. I'm sure that originally the impulse was tied to the possibility that a lot of people would like it, but now it's merely a conditioned response.
At any rate, my tendency to temporarily believe that my youngish impulsiveness would be a positive thing for the community make me an outsider here, but I don't want to change that.
I know that that having a clearly defined purpose helps a community to be strong and it isn't worth making HN (or /r/askscience) more like me if it jeopardizes their existence.
What's more, once in a great while, when it really is time to make a joke I've watched them go by unmolested.
Edit: I'm sorry about the double post. I was having trouble typing on my phone.
Edit2: In response to your comment below, I'd say that people who are pro-business are probably less introverted than I am. Given that assumption, I'd say they'd be less motivated to make those kneejerk comments because they're probably getting enough social validation elsewhere. Granted, those are assumptions layered on assumptions, but at least that was what I meant
By "jab" do you mean derogatory remark? Does that not depend on the poster's perception of Reddit? If one considers them equal but different, then the remark is merely one of contrast.
> each subreddit has its own norms
Granted...
> There are no "community norms" for reddit
From what I've observed, there most definitely are. Their forms of humor are often upvoted across subreddits (e.g., inside jokes, meme's, animated gif's in lieu of discourse).
This is how I interpret the reddit "jab" comparison: go there for funny, come here for info; neither is better than the other.
If you personally feel HN is superior to reddit, than I can see why you'd consider it a jab.
In truth, I find the posts whining about such things worse then the posts they are in reply to.
Although I started using HN a while ago, I would definitely count myself as someone who uses HN to get interesting stories after going through digg and then reddit (and I'm sure there are a lot of us here) but I'm strongly aware of the particular rules here and do find myself making more of an effort to converse in good faith / be less snarky.
If the comment is not worthy of being on HN, then it's also reasonable to conclude that most comments it sparks will be of equal or lesser value. Read that part again.
Understand that if a comment sparks intelligent discussion, it's generally a good comment. And comments that spark intelligent discussion should be supported.
So, either you are part of the problem, or you are wrong, by posting "This isn't Reddit. Please keep on topic." comments. The best solution? Vote accordingly and contribute.
Regarding this:
> If the comment is not worthy of being on HN, then it's also reasonable to conclude that most comments it sparks will be of equal or lesser value.
I don't see any reason to accept it, but even if it did we're talking about a specific subset of responses, and so I've presented an argument for why that subset would add value. This is not inconsistent with the general claim, and so your general claim does not do much in the way of response - it is beside the point.
Finally, 'adding value' is more than just 'sparking valuable comments'. Comments can add value without sparking valuable comments by, e.g. re-enforcing valuable community norms.
The GP remarked that comments that amounted to "This isn't Reddit. Please keep on topic." (TIR) are worthless. You disagreed, and tried to explain why by suggesting that these comments discourage people from commenting.
My assertion is that not only does this not work within the system of HN, but that the TIR comment itself is of equal or less quality to that of the comment it's in reply to.
> I've spelt out a plausible mechanism by which some comments would add value to the community (by preventing deterioration of standards of discourse).
Yes: discouragement through an off-topic comment that contributes nothing to the discussion. By replying, your vote does not count (should up or downvote), and you also highlight the discussion. In essence, rather than using the existing tools and protocol of HN (voting or flagging, ignoring trolls, and contributing posts that add to the discussion), your simply adding a TIR post.
You've made this claim (thought without specifying why it's superior to the existing methods), and yet ignored the simple fact that a TIR post is just as bad, if not worse, then the post it replies to. At the very least, the post it replies to is at least, usually, on topic (Topicality is, of course, not the sole contributing factor to whether a comment is worthwhile).
> If you want to say otherwise, you'll have to take issue with that argument. As it stands, you've not done so.
Your inability to understand, or simply your attempt to dismiss my argument, does not negate my argument. It's clear to any reasonable person the arguments I made. If you are interested in an actual discussion, make an attempt. Otherwise, you just come off as a troll. Judging by your profile (which does matter, considering the nature of this discussion), I wouldn't be surprised.
> I don't see any reason to accept it, but even if it did we're talking about a specific subset of responses, and so I've presented an argument for why that subset would add value.
You've done so while ignoring the harm that the a TIR reply causes. Maybe you aren't aware of the ability to upvote and downvote (I forget the threshold for those features), or flagging. This is highlighted by your final comment:
> Finally, 'adding value' is more than just 'sparking valuable comments'. Comments can add value without sparking valuable comments by, e.g. re-enforcing valuable community norms.
Yes. Adding value is more than just sparking valuable commentary or discussion. What you fail to grasp is that your support of TIR is in direct contrast to valued community norms. We have tools (upvotes, downvotes, and flagging) to handle these issues already. A TIR does not enforce these norms, and in fact, flies in the face of what the community wishes to be.
These are outlined here:
http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The two that are important to this discussion are here:
"Please don't submit comments complaining that a submission is inappropriate for the site. If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link. (Not all users will see this; there is a karma threshold.) If you flag something, please don't also comment that you did."
And:
"If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)"
TIR very much falls into both those categories. Submissions are not just news stories, but comments as well. If something is worth of a TIR comment, it also means you should just flag it.
Yes, public shaming (what TIR amounts to) can be effective in other environments. HN chooses not to work that way. It's what makes the community so mature and effective.
>You've made this claim (thought without specifying why it's superior to the existing methods), and yet ignored the simple fact that a TIR post is just as bad, if not worse, then the post it replies to. At the very least, the post it replies to is at least, usually, on topic (Topicality is, of course, not the sole contributing factor to whether a comment is worthwhile).
I'm not ignoring that fact - it's just that I haven't accepted it. I agree that TIR posts do not derive value from adding valuable on-topic content. But I've suggested a way for them to derive value from another source. Given that, I don't accept the claim that they are just as bad as the posts they reply to. I thought (and still do) that the argument you were offering takes that as a premise. That's the point I made in the last comment, and I took it to be sufficient to show why your argument doesn't go through. I'm very much happy to be corrected if that's not the argument you had in mind.
The point about using existing tools/protocols is a different argument, and I think a good one. However, it doesn't bear on whether TIR posts are in themselves valuable or not - it only bears on the comparative value they have. Evaluation of that argument would require more knowledge than I have of the efficacy of different ways online communities enforce norms. Re the other points - I think there are interesting things to say about them, but I suspect that would take us off the central disagreement. I am however familiar with the other points about comment policy and downvotes etc... - I've used HN far longer than I've had this account. Whilst we're on issues of civility, I would say that suggesting comments come off as trolling, claiming people 'don't grasp' (which can mean 'don't understand'), and judging them on two sentence profiles don’t seem to me very useful. I was slightly brusque in claiming your comment was 'beside the point' - but did so to echo your comment.
I think I should point out that I don't commit to the claim that TIR posts actually are valuable - I just think it's plausible that they are.
Not in this community, which is the context we are discussing this in, after all. Given the other tools available, and given what is valued here, TIR are no better then the comments they reply to. Something you seem to be ignoring is value. Value in terms of respect, and of time, both yours, and others.
A TIR post is not respectful. It's used as an insult. It's an open insults. Given that their are other, more effective means to communicate disapproval, and that be replying, you are removing those means from your arsenal, it's clear that your intent is merely to insult.
A TIR is not respectful to others. By highlighting the post with further discussion, it wastes others time. Not only are you not operating to remove the parent comment from the discussion, but you are asking people to read your comment in reply, and to judge the merits of what is now a discussion. See, if the TIR post is left as is, then I must read the parent in order to understand context. If the TIR post is left as is, it's also a symbol that the comment is a good comment, and worthy of reading.
Do not confuse the intended goal of a TIR. I agree, the intent is good. But even if it accomplishes it's goal of having the parent retract his statement, it does so in a manner that is immature and rude. Being able to bully people into a position is not valuable.
I guess we'll continue to disagree on it's value. That being said, HN has it's policies, and I tend to agree with them, and will continue to down vote both TIR posts and the posts they reply to.
Meta is death. Some meta discussion can be interesting and lead to useful discussion, but in general meta discussion sucks.
Imagine a content free meme-spew post.
Either it gets downvoted by the community (down vote ability appears after 500, maybe 750, maybe higher karma), and the poster knows what they did wrong.
Or it gets downvoted and the baffled new user asks why, and someone then posts "TINR; but here's our guidelines so that's why you got the downvotes". I'd suggest that the TINR in this case is useless, and the rest of the post is of dubious value. If a person is unable to grok the style of HN from the faqs and existing posts without someone having to handhold them then maybe they need to lurk more. But at least it's welcoming and helping people become productive. Notice that this is a tiny subset of TINR posts.
Imagine the content-free post gets a TINR comment before it gets a downvote. It antagonises other communities, it adds no value to the thread, it makes people think that TINR posts are acceptable, it clutters threads, it encourages meta-discussion, etc.
HN is about on topic knowledge sharing, and well formulated opinions.
Reddit is more a social interaction, where debate and knowledge sharing are just one of the many types of interactions.
Still, I cannot resist making one final farewell appeal. Consider carefully the near future, when prof. Kelly will have produced a flood of busy graduates, all experts at disinformation. What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever. You seem to consider this to be of some great educational value but I must admit that the value escapes me.
Let me extrapolate one step further. What is the point of reading anything if it is all likely to be false? Exactly. Stop reading and sit on your dumb asses watching TV.
The world is full of experts in disinformation, and they're not the graduates of a short University course on History that couldn't even fool reddit (no offense redditors!)
They are politicians, lobbyists, campaigners of all political stripes, bureaucrats, journalists, historians etc. Knowing how to sort the wheat from the chaff (and knowing it necessary to do so) is half the point of education, especially in History. And that's what the professor is helping achieve, not a systematic destruction of the written word through a single demonstration as part of a 3 credit University course. Experts at disinformation my hat!
As others have pointed out, masters of disinformation have existed long before this class existed. To take just one example, if you're left-leaning, Fox News (to liberals, Faux News). If you agree with Fox News, then you'll consider everything from the the "Mainstream Media" (or "Lamestream Media") to be disinformation.
Furthermore, there is a grand tradition in explaining about how the "darks arts" are done so you can defend against it. In order to devise defenses to nerve gas, you need to understand how to effectively deploy nerve gas. If you want to understand how politicians and other masters of disinformation use statistics, the book "How To Lie Using Statistics" is an invaluable guide.
> What is the likely outcome of his program if it succeeds? It is not that hard to guess. You will get what you applaud: you will no longer be able to trust anything you read, ever.
Yes, this. You should never blindly trust anything that you read. That's what critical thinking is all about. The point of reading is to find alternate points of view and information that you might not have known before, but everything should be cross-checked to some degree. In some cases you can trust the source because you've previously found the source to be authoritative (say, a professor teaching a class).
But the point of what people are trying to point out with respect to wikipedia is that just because one Wikipedia article has been proven to have a reliable secondary source of information, aggregating multiple primary sources into a handy reference article, is absolutely no guarantee that that particular article will continue to be reliable, or that any other Wikipedia article is guaranteed to be reliable. Using Wikipedia to expose yourself to something that you didn't know before: Good. Not cross-checking anything you read at Wikipedia with primary source material to learn more and to verify the facts that you found in the Wikipedia article? Foolhardy.
Allow me to laugh. This is a professor teaching a class (how to lie)! I guess that makes him an authority on lying but can someone like that be said to be authoritative? Or all other professors, by association?
I must say that I accept many of the valid responses here, thank you. His classes no doubt are educational and one should, of course, check the sources.
However, he is taking practical assignments too far. You can teach students to beware of liers without them first having to lie themselves. It does not seem like the skill of a great teacher to make them actually lie to the public. More like a desperate stunt from a teacher running out of ideas and morals.
Understading is one thing and I agree with all that but in terms of your examples, he is demanding the equivalent of his students actually deploying the nerve gas against unsuspecting people. (Thank you for suggesting that hyperbola)
Were you born yesterday? You already can't trust anything you read, at least not 100%. Even if you had actually shown (as opposed to simply declaring repeatedly) that he's making the problem worse, it would be a drop in the ocean.
It was flagged as dubious because the date that the fictional piece the fictional composer I created had supposedly been performed the day of a new Pope's election didn't match the date on that Pope's wikipedia article.
Turns out we had the right date and the Pope's wikipedia article the wrong one. So our hoax ended up resulting in another article being corrected. From then on, anyone who looked at the talk page saw that someone had already flagged the page as dubious but that it had been resolved in our favour. This gave the hoax quite a bit of credibility. Made me realize how easy it is to create convincing hoaxes.
I can prove it too ... http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/verify [lol!].
I certainly do. First off, any bona-fide academic ought to have respect for the truth, not deliberately set out to build his carreer on lies. One has to wonder: does he also encourage lies in academic publications? Does the publishing outlet, i.e. traditional paper journal versus the internet justify that much difference to the principle of being honest in research? I think anyone this confused about the necessity of the truth should not be an academic. If I was his colleague, I would support steps to have his tenure terminated forthwith.
Secondly, the techniques prof. Kelly teaches and employs are classical disinformation tools, as practiced by Hitler, KGB and other such illustrious preceptors of his. Presumably some of his college funding is intended 'for the public good'. I really question prof. Kelly's idea that expanding the skills base in the disinformation field is for the public good.
Thirdly, and most importantly, one has to ask: what is his real agenda? Clearly it is to disable/discredit/damage/destroy the free exchange of valid information on the internet. If there ever was a real 'information terrorist' it must be him.
In particular it's not a case of malicious spreading of misinformation, it seems that in the case that the hoax worked the lies were deleted.
Rather it's a case of abusing a public resource. It feels to me somewhat like training a group of school-children to play Rugby on a village bowling green. Sure the damage to the grass will be undone over time, and sure the chance of knocking over any real old ladies is very small; but it's still an irreverent gesture that shows a dangerous lack of respect.
In the real world we have checks to make sure this kind of behaviour doesn't get too out of hand; on the internet we've so far managed to avoid the need. I hope that continues.
I don't think he did cross that line though. Some solutions if he did: what if he escrowed (and set a time to release) the pranks in case they aren't caught? What about donating to wikipedia, since it's their green they are mainly playing rugby on?
I really struggle to think of positive educational outcomes from teaching students to pull off successful disinformation exploits.
Your problem is that people might start to mistrust things they read on the internet? That's surely the opposite of a problem.
> There's also an interesting coda to this convoluted tale. The group researching Brown's Brewery discovered that the placard in front of the Star-Spangled Banner at the National Museum of American History lists an anachronistic name for the building in which it was sewn. They have written to the museum to correct the mistake.
Secondly, teaching defense against the dark arts generally requires giving the students a working knowledge of the dark arts. Would you object to the publication of Robert Cialdini's Influence on the same basis?
Thirdly, by illustrating how easy it is to damage the free exchange of information, he helps individuals become more resistant to lies and helps the internet develop new ways to fight misinformation. Think of him as a vaccine to the actual 'information terrorists.'
This guy is not teaching defence against the dark arts. He is teaching the dark arts.
I do not object to the publication of anything at all, except of deliberately fabricated lies. Anywhere, with whatever artificially constructed post-justification.
And yes, it is easy. That is exactly why I am concerned and it should not be encouraged.
I don't believe this is wrong, because the end justifies the means. I get the impression we'll therefore have to agree to disagree on most of these points, since our ethical systems are basically incompatible †.
† From your statement "I do not object to the publication of anything at all, except of deliberately fabricated lies. Anywhere, with whatever artificially constructed post-justification."‡ you make it clear that the action is what is important, whereas I would judge on both the motivation and the consequences.
‡ One clarification though, if I may: Do you agree that in this case there is a simple and logical pre-justification (or that one could argue there is one, even if you disagree with it)? Does that make any difference to you, since you specifically call out "artificial" and "post-"?
Even if he means well, I believe that he is mistaken and so I reject your justification. So does society and courts who have always (rightly) condemned liars. Because lying is easy, dangerous and damaging. It does not strengthen its targets, it more likely destroys them. In this context, the target is the internet.
Look, let me bring up a simple analogy. Suppose you concoct some lies on e-bay to get your 'marks' to send you money. Suppose you are eventually hauled up to court of law and you come up with: 'your honour, I was just teaching those shmucks not to believe everything they read (your words). It is just not going to wash, is it?
OK, he might not be getting paid by those whom he fools but he is getting paid by his college for teaching wrong history on the internet.
I hear what you are saying - there is a lot of rubbish out there on the internet and you should not believe it. However, most of it is produced in good faith by enthusiastic (and sometimes mistaken) individuals exercising their free speech. This guy is a professional setting up a university program of studies to generate lies professionally and deliberately. That is not the same thing.
"most of it is produced in good faith by enthusiastic (and sometimes mistaken) individuals exercising their free speech" - citation needed. By definition, you will never know what the biggest lies out there are because they're never exposed, so your assumption that "all" lies are childish mistakes is wrong.
PS. I never said or assumed that 'all lies are childish mistakes'.
That's not at all what he's doing though. The hoaxes are later revealed as such by him, if not sooner by a disbelieving audience.
You seem to view this as though he's permanently altering history books, but I think that's completely erroneous.
The professor was not "educating some...about not believing everything you read"; he could do that without creating new hoaxes. Certainly there are plenty to go around.
His cons are generally harmless, and he has revealed them so wheres the net loss? There is a long way between this and someone who actually subversively tries to push his views on others (eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxil_hoax )
He seems to me much akin to a whitehat security hacker.
But maybe you are right. I am about to start writing erroneous and deeply misleading programming manuals to teach you schmucks not to believe what you read. Wheee, I am on my way to become a great teacher with a bloody big white hat!
You may wish to turn down the hyperbole, it's obscuring whatever point you have. He's not "building a career" here, he's teaching a class about historical hoaxes. What better way to teach than to demonstrate?
> does he also encourage lies in academic publications?
He's not encouraging lies at all in the first place. He's using carefully crafted lies as, like one of your repliers said, an intellectual vaccine against actual hoaxes.
He's helping inoculate his students and those aware of the hoax against gullibility in the future. How is that not a net benefit?
> I really question prof. Kelly's idea that expanding the skills base in the disinformation field is for the public good.
I think teaching people magic tricks enables them to deconstruct the magic show in front of them. Teaching them how hoaxes are constructed teaches them how to recognize and call them out in the future.
> Clearly it is to disable/discredit/damage/destroy the free exchange of valid information on the internet.
That's not clear at all.
It's interesting, you say "valid information" as if there's a clear way of recognizing information out there as valid. But there isn't. THAT's what his agenda is: how do we tell the real from the fake?
I agree with Wales; deliberately putting untruths on Wikipedia is really anti-social behavior. Wikipedia, however imperfect, is a really great asset -- people using it for their own little experiments like this is really doing everyone a great disservice, and I can only imagine how many others he has inspired to do similar things.
Would anyone would have paid attention?
Where this project goes astray (and I agree that it does) is that his academic and professional community don't seem to have the well-developed concept of "white hat" vs "black hat" that we have here. Translating this into an analogous situation in our primary domain, we're upset because he's teaching them security by leading them through a significant black-hat operation.
The larger problem is, although we can train white-hats by constructing isolated networks and systems to practice on, it's not really possible to construct an isolated system when your "system" is and has to be a social network of actual people.
The key thing is that reddit hasn't just saved us. It hasn't just demonstrated you cannot put out bias and falsehood on the Internet. Its just whacked a mole because the students were, well, students.
What's more interesting is how the different communities responded to the attempted hoaxes. This can help us understand how different hoaxes, memes etc. are spread and how they are, or aren't, debunked.
I think directly linking to the print view is dishonest: telling the Atlantic you plan to print an article, and instead posting it to HN is essentially stealing their ad revenue.
PS: Even if you claim ads are distracting and this is actually a service to the community, I'd rather install ad blockers and make such decisions myself.