Informations from Wikipedia etc


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Johan Melle
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Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Johan Melle » 03/11/2019, 16:10

In Alberto Cevenini's topic there are some informations which appear to originate from the Italian Wikipedia without any credible sources. For example the information that he's the nephew of Elisabetta Barbato.

I'm also a bit skeptical of the reports of his death in 1975. The source is this site: http://www.inmiamemoria.com/scatole_dei ... 217139.php
It may be correct, but all it really says is that a person named Alberto Cevenini died on this date. There are no other details about him and also no date of birth, so I'm not sure if we can conclude that this is the same person as our actor or just a homonym.

I'm sorry if I'm being overly skeptical here, but some years back there was a person who created Wikipedia pages for several of our generici friends and wrote all sorts of fabricated informations there. This is in fact a frequent problem with the Italian Wikipedia, and so I'm always a bit reluctant to trust informations from that site unless there is a credible source to back up the information.

In the case of Cevenini's death, we do have a source, but since it is not entirely clear that the person who died in 1975 is really him, I think we should at least note that this information is uncertain.

What do you think?

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Emiliano
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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Emiliano » 03/11/2019, 16:17

Johan Melle wrote:
03/11/2019, 16:10
In Alberto Cevenini's topic there are some informations which appear to originate from the Italian Wikipedia without any credible sources. For example the information that he's the nephew of Elisabetta Barbato.

I'm also a bit skeptical of the reports of his death in 1975. The source is this site: http://www.inmiamemoria.com/scatole_dei ... 217139.php
It may be correct, but all it really says is that a person named Alberto Cevenini died on this date. There are no other details about him and also no date of birth, so I'm not sure if we can conclude that this is the same person as our actor or just a homonym.

I'm sorry if I'm being overly skeptical here, but some years back there was a person who created Wikipedia pages for several of our generici friends and wrote all sorts of fabricated informations there. This is in fact a frequent problem with the Italian Wikipedia, and so I'm always a bit reluctant to trust informations from that site unless there is a credible source to back up the information.

In the case of Cevenini's death, we do have a source, but since it is not entirely clear that the person who died in 1975 is really him, I think we should at least note that this information is uncertain.

What do you think?
Not to discredit the work of others, but on that blog (Western...) many datas are taken from the internet by searching with google, without citing the sources and without thinking too much about it. For me wikipedia can only serve as a starting point for new research, nothing more and far from me to trust that platform, like IMDb. In fact, a couple of times I wrote that certain data comes from IMDb and is to be taken with a grain of salt.

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Emiliano » 03/11/2019, 16:21

We keep only the data of which we are quite sure, or we write that "it MAT BE so...", we do not make real news taken from other blogs who tell facts and news so easily that nobody knows anything... Better not to write anything at this point.

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Johan Melle » 03/11/2019, 16:24

Yes, exactly. These unsourced informations from Wikipedia etc tend to be re-produced on other blogs and websites, and suddenly this information has become an established "fact". It is for this reason that I'm always rather skeptical of accepting dates of birth or death unless it comes from the Dizionario del Cinema Italiano or a similar reliable source.

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Emiliano » 03/11/2019, 16:25

Please, as you are dealing with it, try to fix the caption by removing the data that appear less certain.

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Emiliano » 03/11/2019, 16:29

Nick will be surprised how "Nazi" we are on this data verification :D
forgive us :p

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by PeplumParadise » 03/11/2019, 17:36

Emiliano wrote:
03/11/2019, 16:29
Nick will be surprised how "Nazi" we are on this data verification :D
forgive us :p
Sounds right to me

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Emiliano » 03/11/2019, 17:41

Thanks for the confirmation Nick!

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by PeplumParadise » 03/11/2019, 17:43

Emiliano wrote:
03/11/2019, 17:41
Thanks for the confirmation Nick!
but by the same token we should still include any information found on the net, giving it's source, since in many cases it still can be correct, rather than just dismiss things because we personally don't think they're true.

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Re: Informations from Wikipedia etc

Post by Emiliano » 03/11/2019, 17:50

The problem is that certain data send back from one site to another and are often the result of invention alone. If I wake up tomorrow and go to wikipedia or IMDb to edit a page by writing that an actor was born in Paris, because I like that city, years will pass before the data is denied. Meanwhile the first blogger will do his article citing that source and the false data continues to spread. It was like this for Carla Brait, who always gave that blog for Austrian (!) Born in Bolzano because simply a jokey on wikipedia had fun writing this data. Then certainly you can't verify everything, but one thing is to find few data put on two lines, another is to read a two-page source that argues and speaks with knowledge of a certain person. I'll give you an example, once I wrote the characters of a movie cast on Wikipedia, making a mistake. In a few years that cast had become public knowledge and I could no longer correct the error because Wikipedia denied me the change.

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