From: INVALID_SEE_SIG@example.com.invalid   
      
   In the previous article, Adam H. Kerman  wrote,   
   quoting me:   
   > >As long as you cite the source honestly, go ahead and post whatever   
   > >information you feel like posting.   
   >   
   > Are you listening to me?   
      
   Not especially closely.  Unhinged rants can be entertaining, but   
   that's not the way to bet.   
      
   > WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A SOURCE but fourth-hand information at best.   
      
   Most of my own Wikipedia edits (not an extensive colleciton, but   
   decidedly nonzero) have been first-hand information.  Wikipedia   
   absolutely *is* "a source," though it cannot be considered an   
   especially reliable one in a vacuum.  Then again, that can be said of   
   most major media outlets these days.   
      
   > Information added to a Wikipedia page is required to cite reliable   
   > third-hand information. That didn't happen here which is why it was   
   > very quickly taken down.   
      
   Yeah, yeah, whatever.  I note that nowhere in your analysis of this   
   event is the fact that it was true and correct information   
   acknowledged.   
      
   > An obituary posted in which the writer got the information from a   
   > close relative is acceptable and what we would expect in the case of   
   > a celebrity.  Something posted by a close relative or publicist on   
   > what appears to be an official social media account is probably not   
   > a hoax, but we've certainly seen social media accounts created just   
   > to spread malicious gossip and hoaxes.   
      
   Sure.  So you just say, "Hey, someone edited _______________'s   
   Wikipedia page to say he died."  Everyone makes his own judgment about   
   how seriously to take it.  Public rumors don't source from   
   alt.obituaries and probably never did.   
      
   > In this case, the "information" was on the Wikipedia page for just a   
   > few minutes, then taken down and Dabney Coleman's status reverted to   
   > "alive".   
      
   And in this case, it was the reversion that was incorrect and not the   
   edit.  Why is it so painful for you to mention this salient fact?   
      
   It has been my experience that "______________ has died" hoaxes are   
   fairly obvious from (close to) the start and tend to be crafted for   
   shock value.  Dabney Coleman dying at 92 is the opposite of shocking.   
   Has there ever once been an intentional hoax about someone that age   
   dying?   
      
   > Crap like that is a huge red flag that the death notice was a hoax.   
      
   And yet.   
      
   > >Sometimes the lack of corroboration just means you got there first.   
   >   
   > There have been hundreds of celebrity death hoaxes over the years.   
   > Usenet has no business participating. We have no need to be first.   
   > We absolutely have a need to be accurate.   
      
   No one has "a need to be first," but sometimes it's nice to be in on   
   information that the public doesn't have yet.  It is a fairly basic   
   human impulse, for some reason.  Nor do we have "a need to be   
   accurate," though accuracy and care are positive goods.  So if all you   
   say is "Wikipedia has been edited" there is nothing inaccurate about   
   that.  It's a real thing that actually happened, and in this case, the   
   edit happened to be accurate as well.   
   --   
     _+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am   
   _|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also   
   \      /  baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer   
   ***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)