This story is not bass or music related at all, but it is simply too good to pass up. I missed this particlar Colbert Report, but I found out about it from Corey Spring’s Newsvine page. Stephen Colbert used “Wikiality” for his “THE WORD” segment on the July 31 Colbert Report. He then proceeded to show people basically how easy it is to mess with all sorts of stuff on Wikipedia. Check out Corey Spring’s post here.
Wikipedia is a fantastic resource which is generally quite accurate. On Wikipedia users both create and police content, and most “vandalism” such as what Colbert was doing is fixed quickly. An article in the journal “Nature” last year compared the accuracy of 50 Encyclopedia Britannica entries with 50 Wikipedia entries. The Britannica entries were on average slightly more accurate (with two fewer errors on average than Wikipedia entries). This study actually demonstrated that Wikipedia is surprisingly accurate given that it is user generated, and that its model seems to work to keep the majority of entries accurate.
I think it is really cool that Stephen Colbert uses Wikipedia (he was logged in as himself on Wikipedia, showing that he at least has a user account), and I think it is quite funny that Wikipedia blocked him after he messed with stuff and told his viewers to mess with entries.
Check out Corey’s post under “Reference Link”:
technorati tags: stephen, colbert, wikipidia, wikiality, report, word
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