Talk:Circular reporting/Archive 1

Maurice Jarre / Wikipedia example
This (a faked quote by Maurice Jarre) is very likely another example of Wikipedia being in combination with circular reporting. Unfortunately, it can't be included in the main article because there's no reliable evidence that the posited scenario (Guardian + Wikipedia were convincing enough for other papers) actually happened, although many readers could conclude on their own that this is very likely what happened. I wanted to at least mention this example however, since 1) it's one of the surest examples we have where the author was intentionally/knowingly trying to propagate a falsehood in the mainstream press using Wikipedia, and 2) this falsehood ended up being repeated more widely than any of the other Wikipedia-related examples currently listed, from BBC to Australian newspapers.

That said, I really don't want this article to be focused on Wikipedia &mdash; it's navel-gazing, and circular reporting happens in many other contexts and we don't want the reader to misunderstand that. --Underpants 19:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Judith Miller and WMD in Iraq
What about where Judith Miller of the New York Times got information from White House sources on WMD in Iraq and the following week after Miller's article was published, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld all appeared on television and pointed to Miller's story as confirming that Iraq had WMD. Does anyone else agree that it would constitute circular reporting? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:18, 17 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, and it's an important case. -- econterms (talk) 18:05, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Citogenesis
Maybe this is more appropriate for discussion with the arbitrators, but why doesn't wikipedia have public disclaimers on articles that have been the center of a citogenesis incident, to prevent the citogenesis from just occurring again? For example, the Wilhelm thing -- there's no written information to prevent that from happening again, and the article's accuracy is only being maintained because of diligent editors who happened to be around for the first time.

Whether on the main article or its talk page, any article that has been the center of citogenesis should note that to prevent it from happening again.52.119.105.14 (talk) 18:47, 29 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm a little late responding, but I think that's a reasonable idea. However, talk pages like this are for discussing improvements to the article. For this sort of suggestion, you're probably better off at the WP:Village pump. Cheers, -- Irn (talk) 13:39, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

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Newest case: Casio watch
WP used asa case study: https://news4sanantonio.com/news/offbeat/the-case-of-an-iconic-watch-how-wikipedia-and-writers-create-false-facts-from-thin-air Zezen (talk) 07:41, 1 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The best facet of that article is the smugness that drips from practically every word: "This sort of thing never would have happened if it had been the work of Real Journalists!" Yet pretty much any "credible news source" such as this would be more than happy to broadcast/post/print whatever scurrilous attention-grabbing rumor they see fit, knowing all they subsequently need do is issue some terse and likely smarmy apology (almost always ending "regrets the error"). That they never mention it again is doubly damnable because, in this Internet Age, nothing can die and the "error" can readily be perpetuated by social media and email, never mentioning it had been "retracted."


 * I find it amusing (in a Twilight Zone sort of way) that in order to gleefully attack Wikipedia's "credibility," News4 San Antonio (and News3 Las Vegas and likely the rest of the humancentipad) falls to citing (heavily) Circular reporting. They thereby exemplify the very behavior they deride in others.


 * Though they did drop an email to Casio Customer Service, surely one of the "reporters" involved could have done more than regurgitate stuff they read posted online, maybe have called up one of their J-school instructors or something?


 * Best of all, the bit cites "a few watch enthusiasts digging for information" yet doesn't mention the actual source, instead pointing to a Reddit page — such a significant improvement over W'pedia for factuality — which credits the earth-shaking discovery to /r/WatchesCircleJerk . And as a final ironic twist, the brief Reddit post routes the reader … ready for it? … to Talk:Casio F-91W (begun 08 Jun 2019).


 * BTW, , I notice you post the same link immediately after that, Talk:Casio F-91W. Is there anywhere else you've noted this, and do you have any actual input into the discussion? Weeb Dingle (talk) 16:55, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

I've been "cited" — now what?
I was doing a little work on a W'pedia article about a somewhat obscure guitar brand, a general topic I enjoy researching. Typically, the page had a fair bit of fan myth, baseless rumor, and misinterpretation, not to mention awkward prose.

Naturally, when my email notice from used-gear site Reverb.com's Daily Feed offered me an article about some obscure guitar brands, I zipped right on over. When I got to the part about that very brand, the entire segment looked … really familiar: the myth, the rumor, the occasionally awkward sentence construction. Aside from some elisions for concision, it's pretty much a word-for-word swipe from the Wikipedia article, including chunks of my own prose. Nowhere is WP mentioned, much less cited.

(I will not mention the article, because of recent experience with certain editors popping in from nowhere to absolutely butcher some piece I'd asked for help with. I'm trying to do topiary and they arrive with flamethrower and bulldozer then expect to be thanked for the carnage.)

The Reverb writer (such as he is) seems a decent enough sort, but fancies himself a "guitar journalist." Yet there he is, not only stealing outright but perpetuating verifiable nonsense — if confronted, he'll readily duck behind his (uncited) source, blaming W'pedia, and it's the Casio kerfuffle all over again.

And speaking of that: how is it that the "professional journalists" attack Wikipedia yet say little or nothing negative about the "professional journalists" who steal (often uncited) from Wikipedia?

I showed up here, maybe hoping for an example of how the citogenesis cycle can be quickly snapped, but found nothing. Considering the citizen journalism phenomenon, is there anything out there that has addressed how WP becomes the scapegoat for journalistic sloth? and how is this playing into the underminining of well-meaning but imperfect sources as fake news and therefore 100% unreliable? Weeb Dingle (talk) 18:15, 17 July 2019 (UTC)

Adding comic that coined the term "citogenesis"
Why do you think this is not appropriate fair use? This is the article about the topic, and bolds citogenesis in the first clause. The article as a whole, and the section on Wikipedia examples in particular, seem like textbook cases of fair use for a low-res image of the comic in question. Warmly, – SJ + 21:12, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The article is about the phenomenon, not the comic, and the free images on the page negate "No free equivalent" of WP:NFCC, and I wouldn't say "its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the article topic" or "its omission would be detrimental to that understanding". You may go the FfD route if you insist, but I suggest you rather ask Munroe to release the strip under a license that allows commercial use, as he did Webcomic xkcd - Wikipedian protester.png, Malamanteau.png, etc. Nardog (talk) 21:25, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I will ask :) and have made the context clearer. But I do think this is covered comfortably under NFCC.  The image itself is a subject of commentary here: citogenesis was hardly possible before the existence of easily-editable websites like wikis (unlike other examples of circular reporting).  The comic is iconic and received attention in its own right.  It visually captures something that is not well represented by the other images on the page, which was also not well described by text on the page.  This is called out in NFCC as a potential use cases, and we need not be shy about using that while always pursuing a free-equivalent option. – SJ +  21:47, 22 February 2021 (UTC)