Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Why I'm glad Computer Scientists invented the internet -

- and not politicians. (No offense, Al).

Apparently after Sarah Palin's recent gaffe claiming a revisionist American history regarding Paul Revere's ride (and then doubling down about it), inspired a group of her supporters to rewrite the Revere wikipedia page to support her statements. As it happens, an interview with Sarah Palin does not exactly constitute a valid source, so Wikipedia said, "uh, no," and that was that.

Not that Wikipedia was exactly a bastion of valid historical data to begin with (and people are easily fooled by citation-looking-things), but this was a pretty weird thing for Palin-fans to do in my not particularly humble opinion. (Twitter is much better for spreading misinformation, doncha know?)

Anyway - Pedantic Wikipedia editors: 1, Wignuts: 0.

Also:

Image description: Paul Revere holds his head in his hand
whilst holding a teapot.

Credit: From Charles Johnson, from Boing Boing.

2 comments:

  1. Wikipedia is usually the first result to come up when searching something or someone historical, so I'm not surprised that those sillies turned to it to rewrite history in hopes of putting out that media fire. Of course, her fans always have a way of making things worse for Palin, don't they?

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  2. Wasn't it rather some Physicists from CERN that invented the internet? Not that this has anything to do with Palin...

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