Talk:Fake news (disambiguation)

message: 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)
thread_title: Move discussion in progress

message: , 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text:  — 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text:  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)
replies: text:  In other words, WP:COI news. – wbm1058 (talk) 14:25, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Redirect of [[Fake news]] to [[Hoax]]