Spanish TV Channels Vandalize Wikipedia 182
strider2004 writes to tell us that Barrapunto, a Spanish tech news site, has outed two TV stations in Spain, one public and the other private, for engaging in Wikipedia vandalism for the sake of a story. (The link is in Spanish; Google translation here.) The public station introduced falsehoods into the Wikipedia entry for John Lennon; the private one vandalized the Elvis Presley entry. Both stations said they were performing an "experiment" to check the reaction time of Wikipedia. Both articles were promptly corrected by other editors.
Update: 08/19 13:01 GMT by KD : Barrapunto is not affiliated with Slashdot.
Update: 08/19 13:01 GMT by KD : Barrapunto is not affiliated with Slashdot.
Re:Good Ol' Unreliable WikipediaBS (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Red neck response (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Red neck response (Score:5, Funny)
It is for sufficiently large values of Mexico.
Local FOX News translation (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So.... (Score:5, Funny)
Bueno, fue hecho con una computadora...
Re:Local FOX News translation (Score:4, Funny)
I'm shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wait ..... (Score:5, Funny)
Vandalizing wikipedia is gay.
Re:Another Brick In The Wall (Score:3, Funny)
Terrorists place bombs in Spanish TV offices (Score:5, Funny)
barrapunto - not just for nerds (Score:5, Funny)
What does that make them, the spanish Drudge Report?
Re:I'm shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:barrapunto - not just for nerds (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I'm shocked! (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the usual witty commentary we've all come to know and love, time and again, but in spanish:
- Imagínate un enjambre Beowulf de estos!
- Esa no es una luna, es una estación espacial!
- En Rusia Soviética, Wikipedia te vandaliza a TI!
Re:I'm shocked! (Score:3, Funny)
Ay, un gato malodoro!
Spanish Ads (Score:3, Funny)
I think it's the first time an advertisement has ever made me want to buy something, particularly when I have no clue what it is.
In the name of science (Score:4, Funny)
"Both stations said they were performing an "experiment" to check the reaction time of Wikipedia."
Maybe someone should perform an "experiment" to test the stability of that TV station's websites.
Re:Good Ol' Unreliable WikipediaBS (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Wait ..... (Score:3, Funny)
Properly vandalizing wikipedia would be. But these TV stations are just wannabees!
If you want your vandalism to stick, become smarter. Either pick lesser known subjects (John Lennon and Elvis Presley are just too high-profile: these are well-watched, and anyting funny will be corrected within minutes). Or, if you absolutely must pick well-known subjects, at leas be smarter about it:
One way would be to make more than one change, using more than one username (I hope you made one of these? "Anonymous IP" edits are just too easy to spot, and raise too many red flags).
- use first username to add vandalismus and lots of expletives to article.
- use second username to "helpfully" revert the expletives, but sneakily leave the vandalism in place...
Most editors won't see through this.Ok, ok, for the first edit you may actually use an IP (but, pleae use a proxy!) to make it look more real.
Oh, and for the helpful username, be sure to fill in your user page and your user talk page, to make sure that the link won't show up red, which is another tell-tale sign that something might be up.
Also, another way of successfully vandalizing a page is to add funny but true stuff. As the stuff is true, nobody will dare to revert it, so it'll stay in place forever, leaving lot of people to wonder why the heck "butcher's son" is such an important phrase that it is mentioned in a phrase list of a language's wikipedia page.
Or usurp a well-known contributor's username, by using letter look-alikes. For instance, in many fonts, the sequence rn looks surprisingly similar to m. Use it to your advantage!
Other fun stunts involve images: