Mediaboss Marketing

In what is certain to become the most-edited page on Wikipedia since Pepe The Frog, alternative facts now has a home on the internets vast free encyclopedia. Helpfully noted as part of a series on misinformation and disinformation, the page, at present, begins with a careful recitation of the phrases origin story, in which White House press secretary and Dippin Dots hater Sean Spicer presented multiple outright lies during a press conference about the shitty turnout for Trumps inauguration, then did not take any questions, a performance that stand-up comedian Kellyanne Conway described as merely presenting alternative facts. (We now know that both were acting on a direct mandate from the commander in Chief, who has been reported as spending his first week in office fuming about the low turnout and demanding his subordinates respond like this, despite advice to the contrary.)

The page is rapidly evolving, comparing the phrase to Orwells notion of newspeak and citing its paradigm-shattering invention as the reason for a skyrocket in sales of 1984. It is also extrapolated to apply to other outright lies from the Trump administration, beginning with Whitehouse.govs claim that crime has increased since 2008 when it has actually decreased. But given that the orders for these alternative facts came from the top, and that the internet is rapidly turning into a semantic battleground between racist trolls and anyone who is not them, it will surely be a continually evolving hub of controversy, newspeak, falsehoods, bullshit, and memes. This is not the last time they will ask us how many lights there are.

Submit your Great Job, Internet tips here.

Previous Great Job, Internet! Dan Aykroyd celebrates the small moments he shared with Carrie Fisher in a new essay

Next Great Job, Internet! The bromance between Mads Mikkelsen and Hideo Kojima is blooming before our eyes

The rest is here:
There is a Wikipedia page for alternative facts already Great Job ... - A.V. Club (blog)

At noon on January 20, when Donald Trump was sworn in as president of the United States, an IT administrator somewhere clicked a button that flipped the First Website, Whitehouse.gov, to a new version that reflected the new administration. Unfortunately, that broke a large number of the approximately 1,935 links to Whitehouse.gov pages on Wikipedia and thats just in English.

Wikipedia editors jumped into action. Links to URLs within http://whitehouse.gov were broken en masse when the new administration changed the main web site, user econterms wrote on a forum for editors. Id welcome advice and correction.

My advice is to relax and get used to Trumps America, which I predict will not be friendly to wikipedia, another user grumped.

Yup, they dont always love external sources of fact, econterms counseled. But wp is widely appreciated as such a source, and it can really contribute helpfully here. If you feel defeated, I empathize. But I'm not defeated yet, on day 3!

The Wikipedians set about finding backups for the broken links, including the backup at https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/ maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration, the nonprofit Internet Archive maintained at archive.org, and direct links to nonpartisan agencies.

Wikipedia has plenty of experience fixing links that break over time, also called link rot. The same thing happened in 2009 when Barack Obamas administration came in, Wikipedia spokesperson Samantha Lien told The Outline. When that happened, editors used a combination of automated tools such as AutoWikiBrowser, which can help editors find and replace broken links on a large scale, and manual corrections to replace all broken links.

Link rot is something editors across Wikipedia are actively preventing and addressing ensuring that even when a page is removed, archived, or changed significantly on the internet, a version of it can always be referenced on Wikipedia, she said. Wikipedia has also published best practices to prevent link rot.

The system works, but slowly and incompletely. Link rot is still considered one of Wikipedias biggest challenges. Some highly cited sources such as The New York Times will take care to redirect links in a redesign, but not every site has the savvy or resources to do so and sites can be obliterated for other reasons, as when Radioheads entire web presence disappeared. In addition to eroding credibility, broken links are an opportunity for spammers and marketers to insert whatever they want to promote.

In theory, Wikipedia could automatically archive every page that is added as a source link. That would make Wikipedia considerably more massive than it already is, but it would prevent link rot. In 2013, it was proposed that Wikipedia should take over a struggling web archive service called WebCite and put a system like this in place; however, that never got off the ground.

Pete Forsyth, a long-time Wikipedia contributor and editor of the volunteer-run Wikipedia newspaper The Signpost, said what happened with Whitehouse.gov is pretty routine. The removal is not, as far as I know, of much consequence to Wikipedia, he said in an email. On scientific matters, Wikipedia values academic, peer-reviewed source materials; we would not consider the contents of Whitehouse.gov (regardless of what administration is in power) to be among the best sources, and we might expect that Whitehouse.gov would rely on the same reference materials as we do. The site would be used in politics articles and as a source for what the current administration prioritizes, but its loss as a primary source is not that critical.

Given the topics high profile and the availability of working replacement links, the Whitehouse.gov link replacement effort could be done in a matter of days. It will not be a problem for long, Forsyth said. But until then, Wikipedia readers clicking through on old Whitehouse.gov links will be seeing a lot of this:

Error page on Whitehouse.gov after the Trump administration took over. Whitehouse.gov

View post:
The Whitehouse.gov reset en masse - The Outline

Subscribe to Loudwire on

Weve got one of the funniest Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? episodes to date thanks to Mastodon and Gone Is Gone bassist / vocalist Troy Sanders!

Weve wanted to get one of the Mastodon guys in our studio for a looooong time, so we jumped at the opportunity when Troy Sanders was in town! After a #HandShakeFromHell, Troy cleared up plenty of Wikipedia entries about Mastodon, including when the band actually formed, which is reported differently on many Wiki pages.

Sanders spoke about the classic story of guitarist Brent Hinds showing up to Mastodons first practice so drunk that he couldnt play. Luckily, Sanders had been in bands with Hinds for seven years up to that point, so Troy knew the talent was there. After sending Brent back to his van, he came back the next day clear-headed and full of awesome ideas.

We ran into one of the weirdest Wikipedia entries in this series history for Sanders episode. On the page for The Hunter, Wikipedia claims Spectrelight and Black Tongue seem to have no meaning to the albums classical theme of Chinese wood, while Dry Bone Valley (especially) and Octopus Has No Friends is seemingly cut from a concept album. Troys answer is one of the greatest in Wiki history, so be sure to stick with our video all the way until the end!

Check out the Troy Sanders edition of Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction? in the clip above, and pick up Gone Is Gones new album, Echolocation, here.

See Mastodon + More of the Most Anticipated Hard Rock + Metal Albums of 2017

See Mastodon in the Top 10 Bands That Have Never Made a Bad Album

Subscribe to Loudwire on

Mastodon Albums Ranked

Originally posted here:
Mastodon's Troy Sanders Plays 'Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?' - Loudwire

CATEGORIES: Marijuana Culture

Share

Wikipedia editors have announced a 420 collaboration from April 15 to April 30 and especially on April 20, 2017. The project is being organized by WikiProject Cannabis.

The purpose of the collaborationis to create and improve cannabis-related content at Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in a variety of fields, including: culture, health, history, medicine, politics, and religion, the announcement states.

The team is searching for a number of contributors, especially for so-called red links or those pages that have not yet been created, of which there are over 100, ranging from cannabis history and laws in countries from Angola to Zimbabwe, to hemp cheese, to individual activists.

Cannabis has long been used for hemp fiber, for hemp oils, for medicinal purposes, and as a recreational drug, the editors wrote. The plant has a history of medicinal use dating back thousands of years across many cultures, and touches on many different fields of study.

The editors indicated they would invite WikiProjects organizers for the collaboration, including projects dealing with agriculture, chemicals, fictional characters, linguistics, tourism, and women. They are also seeking contributors for enhanced coverage of all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and U.S territories, such as Guam and Puerto Rico.

Photo Credit: Duncan Hull

Go here to see the original:
Wikipedia Planning for Huge Cannabis Content Collaboration in April - Ganjapreneur

NESN.com

Chris Hogan's Wikipedia Page Edited To Read 'Steelers' Dad' As Patriots Roll NESN.com New England Patriots wide receiver Chris Hogan completely dominated the Pittsburgh Steelers in Sunday's AFC Championship Game, and his Wikipedia page was updated to reflect that. Chris Hogan's Wikipedia page has been edited. #Patriots ... and more »

More here:
Chris Hogan's Wikipedia Page Edited To Read 'Steelers' Dad' As Patriots Roll - NESN.com