[WikiEN-l] Slashdot trolling phenomena

2011-10-06 Thread Erik Moeller
One of my favorite early Wikipedia articles (nerdy as that is) was a
page called Slashdot trolling phenomena which described all the most
common styles of Slashdot trolls. Of course, it was later nuked as
original research with insufficient sourcing, and is preserved only in
user-space:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kadin2048/Slashdot_Trolling_Phenomena

I thought about this page today because of Slashdot's story about
Steve Jobs' early death:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/000211/steve-jobs-dead-at-56

The story text is, of course, a verbatim copy of the original Slashdot
troll about Stephen King's death. You can see it more closely by
comparing the original submission:

http://apple.slashdot.org/submission/1808868/sad-news--steve-jobs-dead-at-56

I just heard some sad news on talk radio — Apple cofounder Steve Jobs
was found dead in his Cupertino home this morning. There weren't any
more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss
him — even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his
contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

vs.

I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer
Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There
weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community
will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying
his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

I doubt that the responsible Slashdot editor was aware that they were
falling for a troll. Is there a lesson here somewhere? If so, it's
perhaps that documentation of subcultures in Wikipedia is very much
worth doing.

(And, RIP Steve.)

Erik

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Slashdot trolling phenomena

2011-10-06 Thread MuZemike
The same thing happened after Michael Jackson's death; IIRC there was a 
website in which people could insert a celebrity's name, and a death 
article would spew out. I recalled somebody did that with Kevin Spacey 
back in 2009: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kevin_Spaceydiff=298662379oldid=298662328.

http://kevin.spacey.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_st_tropez.php
http://justin.bieber.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_st_tropez.php
http://david.guetta.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/actor_st_tropez.php

-MuZemike

On 10/6/2011 1:07 AM, Erik Moeller wrote:
 One of my favorite early Wikipedia articles (nerdy as that is) was a
 page called Slashdot trolling phenomena which described all the most
 common styles of Slashdot trolls. Of course, it was later nuked as
 original research with insufficient sourcing, and is preserved only in
 user-space:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kadin2048/Slashdot_Trolling_Phenomena

 I thought about this page today because of Slashdot's story about
 Steve Jobs' early death:

 http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/10/06/000211/steve-jobs-dead-at-56

 The story text is, of course, a verbatim copy of the original Slashdot
 troll about Stephen King's death. You can see it more closely by
 comparing the original submission:

 http://apple.slashdot.org/submission/1808868/sad-news--steve-jobs-dead-at-56

 I just heard some sad news on talk radio — Apple cofounder Steve Jobs
 was found dead in his Cupertino home this morning. There weren't any
 more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss
 him — even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his
 contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

 vs.

 I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer
 Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There
 weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community
 will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying
 his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.

 I doubt that the responsible Slashdot editor was aware that they were
 falling for a troll. Is there a lesson here somewhere? If so, it's
 perhaps that documentation of subcultures in Wikipedia is very much
 worth doing.

 (And, RIP Steve.)

 Erik

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Re: [WikiEN-l] Slashdot trolling phenomena

2011-10-06 Thread Ken Arromdee
On Wed, 5 Oct 2011, Erik Moeller wrote:
 I doubt that the responsible Slashdot editor was aware that they were
 falling for a troll. Is there a lesson here somewhere? If so, it's
 perhaps that documentation of subcultures in Wikipedia is very much
 worth doing.

Wikipiedia has a general problem with sourcing anything that mainly appears
on the Internet, because anything that is written in a personal website,
blog, etc. is not considered professionally published and fails the reliable
sources and self-published tests.

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