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Snopes.com, Fact or fiction?

S

Skyhawk

Member
For the past few years www.snopes.com has positioned itself, or others have labeled it, as the "tell all final word" on any comment, claim and email. But for several years people tried to find out who exactly was behind snopes.com. Only recently did Wikipedia get to the bottom of it - kinda makes you wonder what they were hiding. Well, finally we know. It is run by a husband and wife team - that"s right, no big office of investigators and researchers, no team of lawyers. It"s just a mom-and-pop operation that began as a hobby.

David and Barbara Mikkelson in the San Fernando Valley of California started the Website about 13 years ago - and they have no formal background or experience in investigative research.
 
I think they do a pretty good job. They include sources, so that you can see things for youself. If the research is inconclusive, they say so. And if they don't have anything, they say so. I don't see an alternative site out there, at this moment. Sounds like ya had a pet theory debunked?
 
I'd check out Snopes to find out about Wikepedia. They can a lot of times give out bad information, especially when it comes to people on the right side of the aisle.
 
There's never been any secret as to who runs snopes.com. If you look at the bottom of each page, it says who wrote the page. It's usually Barb Mikkelson.

I have found Snopes to be pretty objective. If there's some basis to a legend, they usually note it. You don't need to have a team of trained investigators to do this, just a lot of patience and modest amount of common sense.

I would never call snopes the "final word" on anything. Nobody is infallible. But it is a very quick way to debunk something. More importantly, they give you enough information that you can easily verify the facts for yourself.

As far as Wikipedia "getting to the bottom" of Snopes, that's an absurd statement. Wikipedia is nothing more than a collection of things that people put into it. It is quite easy to create a totally bogus article in Wikipedia, or to vandalize an existing one. Someone with a bone to pick with Snopes can go into Wikipedia and slander the Mikkelsons with impunity.
 
Well that ranks right up there with revelations like the sun rises in the east. What's the encore, challenging someone to stick their tounge to a cold flag pole?

It's never been any secret whose behind Snopes.
 
Wikipedia is probably the poorest source to verify anything; you or I can add or subtract from any subject and do so without proof.
 
Maybe like myself they know how to look things up on the WEB or in the local library or the Library of Congress.
So how does one get formal investigative research experience. I wonder if looking up stuff on the web for 13 years would qualify. NAW!!!
Walt
 
NEIADan's wife here. Studies (Nature, IBM) have found that Wikipedia's error rate is comparable to Encyclopedia Britannica. Neither is perfect, and there are probably very few sources that are error free. Although anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, errors are often quickly corrected by other contributers. I work in a library, and know that the acceptance of online sources like Wikipedia has been slow to happen by people who ARE trained to search for and verify information, but Wikipedia is now commonly used as a resource by many. If you do not want to rely on Wikipedia to report on its own reliability, it's easy enough to Google the studies.
Reliability of Wikipedia
 
> Sounds like ya had a pet theory debunked?

Bah, I won"t consider this theory debunked until I see what snopes has to say on the subject. Oh, wait...

I agree, as far as I can tell, snopes doesn"t have an axe to grind, they just try to fact check and lay everything out there. They provide a great service to me personally since I have pointed outraged friends and relatives to their articles several times to show them that they are being trolled.
 
Snopes is as good as any other source, no better no worse. I haven't had much use for them since reading this section:

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/pricepaid.asp

Instead of verifying the facts, they spin it to their own version down playing the message.
 
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