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Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2017-01-17/In the media

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In the media

Year-end roundups, Wikipedia's 16th birthday, and more


If the BLT's simplicity earns its inventor "hero" status, what of the villain who invented this monstrosity?
  • Seeking sandwich history: A Gizmodo advertorial for the Hormel meat company asked about the invention of the BLT: What Hero Invented the BLT? The author quoted the Wikipedia article and looked for further information about the history of the sandwich. Our BLT article was first created in September 2002. Despite the article's having achieved the good article status in 2011, no one has uncovered such a "heroic" inventor. Lucikly, Hormel has not attempted to claim inventorship to date. Though not mentioned by Gizmodo, there was a period of time where our article on S'mores claimed they were invented by "Loretta Scott Crew", a falsehood which still gets repeated from time to time. (December 16)
  • Students heard that Google was trustworthy and Wikipedia was not: That's the message Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd heard in researching her book It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens. She wrote up the issue in Did Media Literacy Backfire?, a post for the Data & Society Points blog. (January 5)
  • Beyond the locker room: When a Miami Dolphins quarterback took a hard hit during a football game, editors got busy vandalizing the Matt Moore article to report him as "deceased". The edits and Twitter reaction were noted by sportswriters at all22.com and the Palm Beach Post. The Post article also noted a trend in such edits relating to sports events. (January 9)
  • Viewing stats make beautiful music: In a story about past "Best New Artist" Grammy winners, the Tucson Sun covered the entertainment data project PrettyFamous. Using Wikipedia article view statistics as part of an algorithm to assign a "Musician Score", the project determined artist popularity and interest. (January 13)





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