Talk:Fake news (disambiguation)

Revert dab to redirectBroadconcept not dab

• i.e. make dab into dabconcept and move to Fake news or just create directly at Fake news Widefox; talk 11:17, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

This looks more like a WP:DABCONCEPT than a dab. A quick look makes me think the merged target seems to cover it, so we should just revert the creation of the dab so it is a redirect again to the merged article. Rather than tagging as "create a dabconcept here", let's just revert to the redirect? Thoughts User:Robofish, User:Jfhutson User:Radagast83 ? Widefox; talk 13:47, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Redirect to what? Fake news can mean deliberate misinformation or satire. Right now if you Google fake news you're only going to find the former sense, and I might support moving Fake news site to Fake news and putting a hat on it.--JFH (talk) 02:26, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

User:Jfhutson depends on the scope of the DABCONCEPT (and the articles). If we split articles by intent then we have several articles Fake news News satire Video news release, but it still seems like a broad concept to list them all - as they're grouped by "not being real news", more than grouped by "ambiguous titles". That would leave a useful broadconcept at the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC Fake news (with Fake news either being the basis of the broadconcept, or moved to a recent Internet incarnation of it with an approriate title). Currently this dab page is accruing items that are inside the scope of that broadconcept, with no examples outside i.e. no dab page needed. Widefox; talk 11:56, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Content-wise the primary topic is Fake news website, not Fake news. Fake news was created later essentially as a POV fork and has much less material. There is a relevant RfC you might want to weigh in on at Talk:Fake news website#RfC: merges of related pages. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes Dr. Fleischman (commented there, with link to this here), with Fake news website currently having the Internet era stuff, fake news could be a broad concept. As there are competing merge requests with them, I'll just tag with dabconcept for now, as I'm guessing recentism will desire Fake news website to be at the primary topic fake news, preventing a dabconcept there for now until a consensus can be reached. Widefox; talk 11:17, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Primary topic

Dr. Fleischman - the dab has a primary topic - see WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for how they are styled. I undid this [1] which goes against WP:MOSDAB on those grounds. I'm not sure what "undid 2 good faith revs by Widefox - innocent perpetuation of a WP:POVFORK - we do not have consensus that that is the meaning of fake news" means as I didn't change the text, so I reverted as invalid. Widefox; talk 13:02, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

See my comment below in the section titled "Primary topic." --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:35, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Widefox, please don't change this dab page to treat Fake news as the primary topic without obtaining consensus. That page was a POV fork and is of low quality, while Fake news website covers the same content in much greater detail and is almost certainly of much greater value to readers. By making your change, you are steering readers away from a better, more complete article and to a worse, less complete article. I understand that Fake news appears on its face to be the "primary topic," but that is not how we make these decisions. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:26, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman a primary topic is not what you think it is. It is a fact that this dab has a primary topic - see the title Fake news (disambiguation). It has "(disambiguation)" in the title as the basename is taken by the primary topic Fake news. If you wish to change that, you will need to get consensus for a move. Until then, please read the links in the summary and above. Repeatedly undoing normal fixing the style of a dab with a primary topic is getting disruptive, please stop. [2]. I'll get more opinions at the project in the meantime. Widefox; talk 22:36, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

While I'm no expert in WP:DAB, I see nothing in that guideline supporting your view that the dab page is titled "Fake news (disambiguation)," ergo the primary topic is automatically Fake news. Guideline issues aside, I disagree with your edit on good faith grounds, I reverted and took the matter to talk in line with BRD, and I don't appreciate you calling my reversion disruptive just because your position is based on "normal fixing" and mine is not. I'm saying that "normal fixing" hurts the encyclopedia in this case. Please respect our difference of opinion. I applaud your effort to bring more editors into the discussion. I've been struggling to think of how we can get these articles out of the weird limbo they're in, and hopefully more eyes will help. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:38, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman Did you even read MOSDAB as repeatedly asked? The first section MOS:DABPAGENAME If there is already a primary topic, then "(disambiguation)" is added to the title of the disambiguation page, as in Jupiter (disambiguation)" Widefox; talk 00:25, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I guess we're not communicating very well. MOS:DABPAGENAME tells you how to name a dab page once a primary topic is identified. It doesn't tell you how to identify the primary topic. Unless I'm missing something? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 01:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman I hear you clearly, you don't agree that the primary topic is/should be Fake news because you consider it a POVfork. The merits of that is discussed elsewhere and offtopic wrt the current primary topic. Get consensus to change it. Until then, the dab should be styled per the consensus at MOSDAB. The second flawed argument is a common misconception that putting a primary topic at the top is in someway to promote it, in actuality it is done for the exact opposite reason - as it's assumed a reader has navigated from it and so doesn't want it (all per our guidelines). It isn't communication when you cling to this falsehood "I see nothing in that guideline supporting your view that the dab page is titled "Fake news (disambiguation)," ergo the primary topic is automatically Fake news." To clarify communication, it isn't my "view", it's the fact of the location of the pages. As we're quite strict about formatting dab pages, there's not much room for "alternative facts". Can I be more clear than that, to eliminate any communication issues? Widefox; talk 01:50, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Wow, so my view is now alternative facts. Clearly this turned from what I thought was a civil discussion of how best to run the encyclopedia to something much more personal. How about if you strike the personal invective and we resume discussing this matter like adults? (And please stop pinging me with every comment.) --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 02:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Dr. Fleischman, when there are a pair of pages with the same title, except that one has "(disambiguation)" included in the title, there are two scenarios possible:

1. Foo (disambiguation) redirects to Foo, which is a dab page, and there is no primary topic.
2. Foo has an article at that title that is the primary topic, and Foo (disambiguation) holds the dab page.

If an editor feels that Foo should not be the primary topic, they proceed with a requested move, and it is discussed.

Please note that "primary topic" has absolutely nothing to do with the article's quality or lack thereof. It's the subject of the article that is considered primary or not. Examples of primary topics are apple, north, night sky, and star. If you look at apple (disambiguation), north (disambiguation), night sky (disambiguation), and star (disambiguation), you will see a generally consistent formatting in the first couple of lines. This is what Widefox was trying to do on this page: conform to established style. Whether "fake news" is the primary topic here is a different issue entirely. — Gorthian (talk) 03:51, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

I understand that that is the typical case, but I don't think it's the case here. Let me explain the story of these article. Here, once upon a time, not all that long ago, Fake news website was the only article about fake news, and Fake news was a redirect to Fake news website. All of the content development was at Fake news website. There was an RfC to move Fake news website to Fake news, but it ended with no consensus. So things stayed that way, until an editor who didn't like how Fake news website was being edited copied half of its material to Fake news and created this page to direct traffic to Fake news. Since then Fake news has remained woefully inadequate while Fake news website has continued to be developed. There has never been any consensus about what to do about this, but a ceasefire solution was to make this dab page treat both articles equally. That way, at least readers aren't being rutted to one page or the other. Widefox's edit, which I understand is inline with typical practice, disturbs this ceasefire.

Now I understand that apple, north, etc. are primary topics, but that doesn't mean that Fake news is the primary topic for this dab. Both of you seem to be following common practice for standard dabs. What I'm saying is that this isn't a standard dab, so we shouldn't follow the standard pattern. Rather, if you and Widefox are going to cite the guideline, then you should at least try to follow it. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 04:34, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

DrFleischman will you allow others to edit this dab now? WP:CONSENSUS not WP:OWN.

I repeat, it is a common misconception that the styling of a primary topic on a dab is somehow promoting that entry, in fact the opposite (see above). As we've both said, to remove or change the primary topic will take an RM, again consensus. Until then the titles of the articles (whatever their quality) remains. (and even if we revert to having a WP:PRIMARYREDIRECT, the dab still has a primary topic and is styled the same, so this is all futile) Can you link to where some sort of WP:IAR "ceasefire" consensus exists? Your aim to redress a quality issue in the articles here at the dab is misguided. It is only about navigation (see my previous answer, the styling doesn't even do what you think it does). As we work by consensus, instead of telling me I need consensus to edit this dab and repeatedly undoing my edit, it is the opposite - as you are editing against consensus of MOSDAB, and opinions of other editors here, please stop now and gain consensus before continuing against the consensus. Widefox; talk 11:19, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Fake news website which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 20:17, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Redirect of Fake news to Hoax

CFCF, I'm confused as to why you want Fake news to redirect to Hoax rather than to Fake news (disambiguation), given that of the four pages linked to at Fake news (disambiguation), Fake news website has been receiving 5 times the page views of Hoax since it was created. If you object to the existence of Fake news website and think it should be deleted or merged into Hoax, then you should say so on its talk page before editing redirects accordingly. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:25, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I absolutely do not object to the existence of that page. The hoax page links to it in the hat-notice now. What I object to is how we're somehow attempting to make a distinction between hoax and fake news — when in fact there is none. Fake news websites is a new phenomenon, fake news is not. I intend to work on these pages as soon as I have some more time, but for now I can give you reference to Tim Wu's excellent book on the topic "The Attention Merchants". It has some really spot-on examples of the New York Sun spreading fake news in order to sell more copies. This is the same phenomenon and we shouldn't try to split them. The same is true with Soviet misinformation, what they spread was hoaxes in the form of political propaganda, which is exactly the same phenomenon as we're seeing today. This seems undisputed when you read the scholarly sources. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 20:31, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Ok, I understand your position, but I don't think this is a proper basis for steering inquisitive readers to Hoax rather than to Fake news (disambiguation). The purpose of the dab page is to help readers find what they're looking for, and most of them are looking for Fake news website, not Hoax, regardless of whether there's a distinction between the two concepts or not. I think your goal would be better served by gathering a consensus at Talk:Fake news website that there should be something in that article saying that there is no distinction between fake news websites and hoaxes. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:47, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Currently it's the same amount of clicks as if this had run us past a disambiguation page, and I would argue it has at least the same degree of visibility. Hoax should be the page people are looking for, that it is inadequate is unfortunate but shouldn't prompt us to disambiguate instead. I will see what I can do tomorrow, it is astounding that Hoax which is such a major topic doesn't have a better article. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 20:52, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

It seems like you're putting the cart before the horse, but that's just me. I posted notices of this discussion at Talk:Hoax and Talk:Fake news website. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 21:29, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

And I noticed your posting, thank you DrFleischman, but I had already been independently giving Carl the third degree over at his usertalk page, on the question of whether 'hoax' is in fact a synonym for 'fake news'. But now I see that he is busy expanding the content of Hoax, so that it contains a subsection summarizing the definition of 'fake news' / 'fake news website' (and a pointer thereto). So I am withdrawing my complaints for the moment, I think that having fake news be a redirect to Hoax#fake_news which has a Template:main pointing the interested reader over to Fake news website, is probably going to turn out just fine. Even though there are plenty of kinds of 'fake news' which are not in fact hoaxes, I think it is reasonably correct to say that the vast majority of the readership, when they search for 'fake news' here on wikipedia, are going to be wanting the hoax-variety. Which has a long pedigree, as CFCF points out, there are journalistic scandals going back indefinitely (which are a kind of hoax), and there are satire-comedy examples going back for some time. There are some counterexamples, such as the brief trend of calling video news releases 'fake news' and the FBI sting example where an undercover agent covertly impersonated a journalist and fabricated some stories, but those are corner-cases. While I definitely disagree with CFCF that the phrase 'fake news' is merely a synonym for 'hoax' the argument can be made the in the majority of their uses of the phrase the majority of the sources *are* in fact talking about hoaxes. Does that make sense? 47.222.203.135 (talk) 21:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I think you might be missing the point of this discussion, which isn't about what content should or will be at Hoax or Fake news website in the future but about where this redirect should point to right now. As it stands, the evidence is that most (but not all) people looking for content related to "fake news" are looking for Fake news website, not Hoax. It's inappropriate to steer them away from the page they want to read, and toward a page that they might want to read someday in the future. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:30, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

No, I realized the point. You and I just disagree about whether or not the two-sentences-and-a-hatnote, were "okay enough for now", per below. Do we actually have evidence, for what the readership clicks when the are sent to a DAB page? I.e. are their numeric counts that say how many readers clicked on fake news website after landing on fake news (disambiguation), and how many instead clicked on hoax, and so on? That data would interest me, but I didn't think wikipedia recorded anything except raw pageviews. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

The current redirect to Hoax#Fake news underscores the problem. We have a redirect to a summary section that consists of 2 sentences and a hatnote to the main article. I'm not an expert on redirects but I believe that's a no-no somewhere in the guidelines. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:37, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

No, the two-sentences-and-a-hatnote was the first phase of a solution that CFCF was working on. I didn't see it as a big deal that users who searched for 'fake news' within wikipedia geting directed to Hoax#fake_news, and *then* clicking to get the dab-page. (That structure-change has since been reverted by User:Wbm1058, per below. Which is also fine by me, although I don't see keeping it the older way as any big whoop.) The only thing that was making me unhappy, was the interim situation when CFCF had redirected from 'fake news' straight to 'hoax' but was NOT yet giving the reader a pointer from hoax to the fake-news-disambiguation page. In other words, I was happy with it the way things were before, unhappy when there WAS no two-sentences-and-a-hatnote, then mostly happy again with the two-lines-and-a-hatnote version... whereas you were unhappy with everything but the long-standing consensus. And were backed up by JzG and by Wbm1058 who reverted CFCF. Which stance I can understand, although I don't really agree. 'Tis a minor point in my book, that may resolve itself when CFCF finishes what they attempted to start. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

• For my money, the dab page is the more appropriate target. Fake news is about more than just hoaxes, and the user will be given the choice of how best to direct their search. Guy (Help!) 01:07, 13 January 2017 (UTC)

JzG — how is fake news different from hoaxes? Hoaxes were a primary feature of early 20th century penny presses and yellow journalism, with the intent to gain financially or politically in the same way as today. In Jim Wu's The Attention Merchants there are so excellent examples of just this happening and how the phenomenon is exactly the same as before. Using websites is new, but seeing as Hoax#Fake news prominently links to them I think it is appropriate. I will expand the Hoax article later today. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 09:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

The intent is different. A hoax is usually essentially benign, whereas fake news definitely is not. It's like the difference between bullshit and lies. Guy (Help!) 18:19, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

It really isn't, but I see I'm going to need more to show for if I want to argue for this. I'll rewrite the article and we can discuss this again. Will ping... Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 20:30, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

The original Fake news article was created on 25 March 2005.

• at 00:28, 21 April 2005 Fake news moved to Managed and planted news
• at 00:40, 21 April 2005 Managed and planted news moved to Distorted news
• at 17:54, 3 July 2005 Distorted news moved to News propaganda.

I just added News propaganda to the dab, and look in wonderment to see how it ever went missing. wbm1058 (talk) 19:09, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Redirecting Fake news to Hoax is kind of like redirecting Football to Sport. lol wbm1058 (talk) 19:13, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Redirects:

• Counterfeit news
• Invented news
• Forged news
• Faked news
• Manipulated news
• Planted news
• Managed and planted news
• Distorted news
• Campaign journalism

Example: "91,000 felons illegally registered to vote" – wbm1058 (talk) 19:54, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

No it really really isn't. I'll rewrite the article and you will see why not... Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 20:29, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

My thanks to wbm1058 for pointing out the old cold trail of 2005 editing on the 'fake news' topic -- which in those days meant (when it was not Colbert/Stewart/SNL/TheOnion/satireNews) specifically video news releases by governmental PR groups with hired actors playing the role of pseudojournalist and tossing softball questions to the governmental officials, after which the PR firms would push the pre-packaged agenda-framing video footage to the 24/7 news stations... and many of them would air it verbatim, thereby putting the stamp of journalistic approval onto what was essentially domestic propaganda. GWB got heat for it, so did Bill Clinton, and GHWB also had some problems with the phenomena (not called 'fake news' at the time but merely video news releases) in the Nariyah incident. I have added some other wikipedia-archaeology links over here, if anyone wants it. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

In other words, WP:COI news. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

–Wbm1058, would you like to write something about this definition in the definitions section? It certainly does not seem to be the default definition today, maybe we should see over which articles on Wikipedia use this definition? Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 16:29, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

History of fake news

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Looking through some sources I'm trying to write a history section for this article. However I find it to be difficult, because there is no clear demarcation from the traditional hoax. Politico starts its story on the history of fake news [3] by stating a 1475 false story spread by Bernardino da Feltre, and states that fake news is as old as the printing press. Has anyone else found good sources that corroborate this? Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 16:28, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

This is just common sense. It wouldn't surprise me to find that historians have found handwritten "fake news" disseminated on papyrus or parchment scrolls in ancient Greece. Anything to smear opponents in the pursuit of power.

Someone just needs to do the research. wbm1058 (talk) 16:35, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

No, wbm1058, those ancient hypotheticals would be propaganda or merely rumour (perhaps politically weaponized as a whispering campaign), but would NOT be 'fake news' in any precise exacting sense. To qualify as 'fake news' the story has to either brandjack the name of a news media entity, such as ABCnews.com.co (note the .co which is in South America), or it has to involve impersonating a reporter (see the FBI sting operation in 2007 mentioned in draftspace), or it has to involve *paid actors* pretending to be news reporters and then *real television stations* playing along with the facade (see video news release), or it has to be written in a journalistic style at minimum (e.g. see React365 'prank your friends' website at list of fake news websites).

You cannot have 'fake news' unless there is, in one form or another, the attempt to hijack the good reputation of the investigative journalism industry, for striving to achieve objective truth in their reporting. Thus there was no such thing as 'fake news' in the days of the pyramids and papyrus, there was propaganda, yes, and rumours of course (and various other kinds of lying), while much later in the 1800s there was yellow journalism, and hoaxes have a long history, while practical jokes have existed since forever.

In academic journals, "fake news" is used as an umbrella term that includes hoaxes, yellow journalism, propaganda, and even satire. Until recently, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and SNL's Weekend Update were referred to as "fake news." Nowadays, the term is taking on a pejorative flavor, but I still think you'll find it used more generally—and I don't think the previous information on fake news should be ignored just because the definition of the term has evolved. As recently as 2014, researchers were using the term "fake news" to refer to the propaganda put out by Putin's Channel One during the early days of the Crimea conflict in Ukraine. Narrowing the definition today will make it difficult to understand and converse about what has already been written on the topic. (Scapulus) 21:31, February 2017 (UTC)

But to count as 'fake news' you have something that is 'real news' which the fakers are capitalizing upon, and some news media which has a non-horrible reputation that the fakers are temporarily swiping. I don't know when news first became respected enough that it was possible to have fake news, but I know that for a long time news was almost entirely yellow journalism aka biased news (see media bias). The reason that fake news is a relatively new problem, is because honest objective journalism is a relatively modern concept! The reason that fake-news-website as a clickbait-scam, are a *very* modern concept, has to do with the *decline* in people's trust in the objectivity of the mainstream media, whilst simultaneously their hunger for confirmation bias of their own biased beliefs. It is not a simple topic to clarify in encyclopedic neutral prose.

But we should only make our prose as simple as possible, and no simpler! I definitely do not want wikipedia to be imprecise, and say things like, "fake news has existed since the dawn of time" when what we really mean is that lying has existed since the dawn of language. Hoaxes are a particular *type* of lying with a fairly complicated infrastructure supporting the lie in question, and fake news is a *very* specialized type of lying, that hijacks the broad reputation of journalists NOT to lie too much while simultaneously taking advantage of the perceived bias that the public also believes mainstream journalists labor underneath. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.