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Old 10-08-2013, 03:03 PM
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Default Snopes

Do you view this website as accurate? How do I know the info their isn't bogus? How do their references get checked? I get so sick of people saying 'I checked snopes'--well I could say ' I checked the Nat'l Enquirerer' could pull just as much weight.
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Old 10-08-2013, 03:25 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

The Mikkelsons are pretty meticulous about their research and include references in their pages on the topics, plus they have a cadre of skeptics and other experts on a variety of topics who are members of their message board, where the topics often start before they become a thing on the website. As for a liberal bias, they have no more than the fact that facts have a liberal bias. Barbara Mikkelson is a Canadian citizen who can't vote here and David Mikkelson is and Independent who used to register as Republican.

Edit: FactCheck.org, a non-profit bipartisan political fact checking organization, says they found no bias in Snopes reporting.

Edit2: In the interest of full disclosure, I was once a member of the Snopes Discussion Message Board, username: Goes-hmmm.
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Old 10-08-2013, 03:34 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Have they always run snopes?
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Old 10-08-2013, 03:39 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Since way back in the 90s when I joined on, not too much after the internet as we know it now was a thing. It was one of the first message boards I ever joined.

The Straight Dope - Fighting Ignorance Since 1973 is another good resource for finding out the story behind the story.
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:02 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Way back when it was only about debunking stories that anyone's spidey sense could recognize, (there's a gang member hiding under your car in the mall parking lot waiting to slice your ankles to make initiation, oh and don't lick the gluey part of envelopes because there's mouse shit there which will turn into cockroach eggs and you'll breed them in your mouth) now it seems to have a political slant, is that right?
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:18 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

They started out on Usenet at alt.folklore.urban, which was a newsgroup dedicated to factchecking urban legends, and the main gist of all the factchecking, then and now, was that they don't just take your word for anything. You need actual references or logical impossibilities for a definitive ruling.

I once was making fun of tech journalist Phillip Elmer DeWitt on a.f.u. because he cited an urban legend in a Time magazine article and he came to fight me, but his whole argument was pretty much just "WAAAH, NUH UH! SHUT UP!"
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:21 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Is there some specific part that you think is inaccurate? I mean, there are a lot of political based urban legends out there, so it'd be weird if they didn't do them.

If there seems to be a political slant in terms of them debunking things Republicans say, maybe it's because because Republicans tell more lies.
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:30 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Quote:
Originally Posted by lisarea View Post
Is there some specific part that you think is inaccurate? I mean, there are a lot of political based urban legends out there, so it'd be weird if they didn't do them.
nah, not really it just seems to be the end all be all when it comes to myths and I just wondered why there never seems to be a caveat attached to snopes? I have always wondered this
Quote:
If there seems to be a political slant in terms of them debunking things Republicans say, maybe it's because because Republicans tell more lies.
LOL, well I didn't say that, but okay.
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:35 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Shelby View Post
I just wondered why there never seems to be a caveat attached to snopes?
You just assumed there wasn't and didn't worry that you might be spreading a falsehood?

:hmmm:
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:38 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

is there? No, I haven't investigated beyond rolling my eyes when someone says "I checked snopes, (because I couldn't tell myself that it was bullshit) and it's bullshit'.

I have seen the cheesy website, I haven't looked for a disclaimer on it.
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:44 PM
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What kind of caveat would you expect? I mean, unless I have some particular reason to suspect that a given source is especially prone to bias/misinformation/pants on fire lying/whatever, I don't generally preface any reference I make to a source with some kind of general purpose warning about human fallibility.
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Old 10-08-2013, 04:55 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

If this is just about the understandable annoyance of people saying "I read/heard from X that Y" and assuming that ends the discussion, that doesn't have much to do with snopes in particular, and I imagine it would happen at least a little less frequently with people inclined to look things up on a fact-checking website in the first place. If you're actually trying to say that "snopes said X" carries no more veracity than "National Enquirer said X," then lol, no. Their reputation is well earned.
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  #13  
Old 10-08-2013, 04:58 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Adam View Post
What kind of caveat would you expect? I mean, unless I have some particular reason to suspect that a given source is especially prone to bias/misinformation/pants on fire lying/whatever, I don't generally preface any reference I make to a source with some kind of general purpose warning about human fallibility.
There's a special place in my heart for this rhetorical tactic.

:hippie:
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Old 10-08-2013, 05:12 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

I was wondering if there were a category of urban sex legends. Like college kids all telling the same stories about, I don't know, sex in the library stacks or professors who give grades for sex or something. Not that these things don't happen, but that the same formulation of stories about them might exist. But there was nothing on Snopes, and that made me sad.
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Old 10-08-2013, 05:14 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Janet View Post
I was wondering if there were a category of urban sex legends. Like college kids all telling the same stories about, I don't know, sex in the library stacks or professors who give grades for sex or something. Not that these things don't happen, but that the same formulation of stories about them might exist. But there was nothing on Snopes, and that made me sad.
or skittling. it's obvious to me it's nonsense. But I refuse to check snopes.
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Old 10-08-2013, 05:47 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

They always cite their sources and their reasoning, and they're really pretty fussy about not classifying something as true or false unless they have a solid case for it.

Even really textbook, seemingly obvious urban legends don't get labeled false unless they have some pretty solid proof.

I have no doubt that the type of people who spread urban legends are unlikely to actually read the part where they show their work, but it is there.

They have some sex legends here, and college ones here, with a Risque Business subcategory.

With a lot of the embarrassing story or current trend urban legends and such, though, it's almost impossible to either confirm or verify them unless you can locate some solid source, which urban legends just don't have.
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Old 10-08-2013, 06:29 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Shelby View Post
But I refuse to check snopes.
That's just stupid. There's some pretty entertaining reading there.
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Old 10-08-2013, 07:02 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

You could always reply with,
"Well I read the Daily Mail and they said a group of miners found the entrance to hell and it said 'here be snopes readers' then they were chased out by the collective ghosts of Walt Disney, Henry Ford and Bill Gates. True story."

Well really besides actually investigating things, they are willing to revisit and correct articles when they learn new information. Which is more than most news outlets would do.
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Old 10-08-2013, 07:06 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

It's the closest thing we have to a "follow-up" channel.
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Old 10-08-2013, 09:21 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Thanks, Pea, but that's not what I was looking for.

True confession: I thought if there were some set of standard college sex urban legends that I could take a bunch, stick them together with bad prose and have the next Fifty Shades like hit book. Under a pseudonym, of course.
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  #21  
Old 10-08-2013, 10:26 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Shelby View Post
is there?
Yes, there's even a page warning against lazy dependence on all false authorities.


No, I haven't investigated beyond rolling my eyes when someone says "I checked snopes, (because I couldn't tell myself that it was bullshit) and it's bullshit'.
Wait - Do you have a problem with snopes being right or snopes being wrong, Shel, because you aren't making much sense here?
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Old 10-08-2013, 10:38 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

I've had people I know say, after being debunked by snopes articles, that they don't care if the bullshit emails they're forwarding are true or not, that they're fun or interesting even if they're not true. That's eye-roll worthy to me. I hate it because they're passing that stuff off as true, like Obama's Kenyan birth certificate or the Marines kicking the shit out of a guy.
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Old 10-08-2013, 10:48 PM
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Default Re: Snopes

oh okay I see where you guys is headed. I'm one of those who goes off half cocked with out having the whole story. yeah I get it.

FUCK YOU PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Old 10-08-2013, 10:59 PM
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I'll accept that.
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Old 10-09-2013, 03:36 AM
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Default Re: Snopes

Quote:
Originally Posted by Miss Shelby View Post
oh okay I see where you guys is headed. I'm one of those who goes off half cocked with out having the whole story. yeah I get it.

FUCK YOU PEOPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I find this hard to believe because I doubt the veracity of the source
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