Internet Evaluation: Hoax Sites? -- responses from BI-L posting -- 06/21/00


From Lynn Olsen, Reference / Instruction Librarian
Pierce College Library

NPR's All Things Considered did a story about RTmark (pronounced "Art Mark).  It's a
group that does publicity pranks, etc (it's too complicated to explain but you can listen to the
piece from the NPR site).

RTmark is responsible for the well-reported "fake" gwbush site which I've used in classes to teach
evaluation.  Their site describes the background of that project (which I had not known).  They also
give examples of other "rogue sites" as they call them.  Although their entire site is
interestesting (http://www.rtmark.com) you can get to the "rogue sites" section by going to:
"past projects" (at the top of main page)
"ongoing projects" (bottom of left list)
"rogue sites"

I recommend the NPR piece and could even see using that as part of the teaching.

I have also used:
http://www.martinlutherking.org (also sent in by Ona Lou Britton)
http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/

and would sometime like to use:
http://www.d-b.net/dti/
cloning hoax

http://www.dhmo.org
hilarious---watch out for the DHMO! (also sent in by Mark Singer and Lisa Oberg)



From Rebecca C. Albrecht, Instructional Services Librarian
Mortola Library
Pace University

Check out Christopher cox's list of sites for evaluation from the Gordon
Library at WPI:
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/Library/Training/webeval.html#ex



From Kristin Nielsen
Instructional Services Coordinator/
Reference Librarian   *   Main Library
University of Georgia

Here are a few sites that I've used in classes on evaluating web sites:

A couple of political parodies:
http://www.georgewbush.com
vs.
http://www.gwbush.com (also sent in by Ona Lou Britton)

http://rudyyes.com (not so useful now that he's dropped out!)
vs.
http://yesrudy.com

http://www.whitehouse.net
vs.
http://www.whitehouse.gov

http://martinlutherking.org

Does aspartame cause MS or lupus?
http://www.dorway.com/wec-ms95.html
vs.
http://www.msfacts.org/aspartame.htm



From Kathy A. Turner (kturner@fit.edu)
Instructional Programs Librarian
Evans Library
Florida Institute of Technology

Two examples I use are:

http://www.martinlutherking.org which isn't really a hoax. It's just an awful site
(in my opinion) with terrible stories about MLK, Jr.'s last night and all
the wrongdoings of his life. I understand it is run by a hate group, but it
sure looks like a classic salute to a well-respected American civil rights
leader - until you take a very close look.

and

the Internet Addiction one, which we enjoy so much and is always popular
with undergraduates (we have a whole *routine* that goes with it)
http://www.albany.edu/library/internet/addiction.html

I hope this helps. I'd like to hear of any you know of, too, if you don't
mind. I am teaching a session for our graduate teaching assistants training
in August on doing effective research on the Internet. I need to spin it to
even more scholarly information than my usual approach.



From Brittney Goodman; goodmanb@mnstate.edu
  Instruction/Reference Librarian, Moorhead State University

Ken Winters has a nice compilation of "hoax" and "questionable" web sites
you might make use of, including the famous Mankato, MN page!

"Questionable Web Sites"
http://www.vmi.edu/library/kw/questionable.htm



From Owen E. Williams, Director of Library Services
University of Minnesota, Crookston
UMC Library

I teach BI at a small 4 year college.  I developed a hoax page that I show students and then ask them to look at it and evaluate.  I ask them what they think of the page using criteria that I give them.  The complete page is bogus including all the Excel spreadsheets that I put in.  I know this isn't exactly what you were talking about but I have found this to be a very effective way to teach the students to think critically about WebPages.  The responses I get from the students are usually pretty interesting.  They range from being appalled that someone would put false information on the web to thinking it is pretty funny.  Those responses give me a chance to show how easy it was to do what I did.  You might notice that I chose a ridiculous topic for a page that many would recognize as kind of odd.

I would be interested in the other responses that you get.

http://www.crk.umn.edu/library/links/evaluating.htm



From David Fiske
Professional Development Program
Rockefeller College

I just finished a class I was giving on Internet Research, and I used some
examples
that I think got the message through that you can't trust everything you see
on
the Internet.

This first one is a fake article that actually was published in a legitimate
journal by a researcher who wanted to show that some journals are not that careful
about what they accept for publication. Since the article is there for
people to stumble across on the Internet, it makes a good example, and has the
advantage that the author provides plenty of explanation elsewhere on the site about
how this all transpired, what his motivations were, and how it really was a
hoax.

http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/transgress_v2/transgress_v2_singlefile.html

Politicians get picked on a lot through "unofficial" sites, so I showed my
class this one:

http://www.gwbush.com

For a list of items (some genuine, some fake), see the following. I used it
as an in-class exercise, assigning one item to each student. Then everybody told
the class how they tried to check on the validity of the information, and their
conclusions about whether they were hoaxes or not. It turned out to be a lot of fun.

http://www.library.georgetown.edu/internet/eval.htm



From: Randy Reichardt
Univ. of Alberta, CA

Try these sites:

http://147.129.1.10/library/research/AIDSFACTS.htm
http://www.dhmo.org/
http://www.d-b.net/dti/
http://www.improb.com/airchives/classical/cat/cat.html
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Alley/7028/hasta.htm



From: Orf, Janice M., Reference Librarian
O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library
University of St. Thomas

The Mankato web site (one of our library's favorite) is still there, but the
url changed slightly.  You can now find it at:
http://lme.mankato.msus.edu/mankato/mankato.html

I would have really missed the whale watching on the Minnesota River.....



Collected by Celita DeArmond, Reference/Instruction Librarian
UTSA Library
San Antonio, TX
cdearmond@utsa.edu