Soapbox Sticky
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chefdennis
Veteran Expediter
21cExp
Veteran Expediter
I've been a forum and bbs hound for ages, and can safely say, at least in my experience, nope, usually it won't stop the trains of misinformation. The struggle of truth against misinformation has been happening online all the way back to the days of The Well, and though a noble reminder, perhaps, a posted notice to be careful will usually be ignored.
I heard an interview last week about fact checking in current politics. Even though there are organizations dedicated to fact checking the statements made by both parties, the fact-makers, the fiction writers, know that more people will hear or read the misinformation and believe it than will ever hear the truth when the misinformation (statistics, voting records, statements attributed to this candidate of that) is shown to not be fact. Additionally, they know that some people just want to believe the bad, want soundbites they can repeat to back up opinion, so grasp the untruth rather than take the little bit of time it usually takes to know more.
A sticky or reminder to read something before posting may not stop the train on this or any other track, but not bringing attention to something that you know is false only encourages more untruth. I don't think Brisco's post was done intentionally as an untruth, not at all. I was not offended by it or trying to offend in return. It just needed to be noted that it wasn't true.
I don't believe that fact checking or speaking truth does take a lot of time and effort, but does require a lot of objectivity, yes. In the particular case of what sparked my mention that the post had been debunked, it had a vague familiarity about it, and a simple two second search on google of just one of the copy/pasted sentences yielded a page of links.
Quotes and passages we read on others sites or in other forums can almost always be easily verified. I've seen quotes attributed to famous men, both here and on other forums, that have never been found in that man's writings or in any public record, but were originally put forth by some pundit or blogger with an agenda trying to sound credible.
It should be rather obvious which sites are factual and accurate and which are bloated untruth. Even Wikipedia, largely copied from both here and on other forums as well (often without attribution of any sort) cannot always be trusted. Usually, however, if on an official site like a university etc, and verified by sites independent of each other, you're good.
I heard an interview last week about fact checking in current politics. Even though there are organizations dedicated to fact checking the statements made by both parties, the fact-makers, the fiction writers, know that more people will hear or read the misinformation and believe it than will ever hear the truth when the misinformation (statistics, voting records, statements attributed to this candidate of that) is shown to not be fact. Additionally, they know that some people just want to believe the bad, want soundbites they can repeat to back up opinion, so grasp the untruth rather than take the little bit of time it usually takes to know more.
A sticky or reminder to read something before posting may not stop the train on this or any other track, but not bringing attention to something that you know is false only encourages more untruth. I don't think Brisco's post was done intentionally as an untruth, not at all. I was not offended by it or trying to offend in return. It just needed to be noted that it wasn't true.
I don't believe that fact checking or speaking truth does take a lot of time and effort, but does require a lot of objectivity, yes. In the particular case of what sparked my mention that the post had been debunked, it had a vague familiarity about it, and a simple two second search on google of just one of the copy/pasted sentences yielded a page of links.
Quotes and passages we read on others sites or in other forums can almost always be easily verified. I've seen quotes attributed to famous men, both here and on other forums, that have never been found in that man's writings or in any public record, but were originally put forth by some pundit or blogger with an agenda trying to sound credible.
It should be rather obvious which sites are factual and accurate and which are bloated untruth. Even Wikipedia, largely copied from both here and on other forums as well (often without attribution of any sort) cannot always be trusted. Usually, however, if on an official site like a university etc, and verified by sites independent of each other, you're good.
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