The rate of factual inaccuracies in "trusted" news site's articles about Second Life is appalling

[lucagrabacr]

I'm totally fine with opinion piece regarding Second Life, whether it's with or against it, critics and whatnot. But when they are stating things that are clearly factually incorrect and present them as facts, it's just wrong, and the fact that their mistakes put SL in bad light only made it worse. These are not kids messing around in SL and then put it on YT or people posting articles on satire sites, these people are grown ups working for trusted news outlets who have the responsibility to make sure they don't do stupid things like these.  

This New York Times article said Second Life is a "defunct alternate-universe game from the early 2000s"

This MIT Technology Review article implied that Sansar is a direct successor to Second Life.

This WWG Article implied that Second Life is based in the UK

And those are just some of the recent ones. We shouldn't let this kind of thing keep on happening. it's outrageous. I've publicly contacted the writers about their mistakes, but I suppose it would get their attention more if I'm not being the only one voicing my concern about this kind of recklessness. 

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

lucagrabacr wrote:

I'm totally fine with opinion piece regarding Second Life, whether it's with or against it, critics and whatnot. But when they are stating things that are clearly factually incorrect and present them as facts, it's just wrong, and the fact that their mistakes put SL in bad light only made it worse. These are not kids messing around in SL and then put it on YT or people posting articles on satire sites, these people are grown ups working for trusted news outlets who have the responsibility to make sure they don't do stupid things like these.  

This New York Times article

said Second Life is a "defunct alternate-universe game from the early 2000s"

This MIT Technology Review article

implied that Sansar is a direct successor to Second Life.

This WWG Article

implied that Second Life is based in the UK

And those are just some of the recent ones. We shouldn't let this kind of thing keep on happening. it's outrageous. I've publicly contacted the writers about their mistakes, but I suppose it would get their attention more if I'm not being the only one voicing my concern about this kind of recklessness. 

---

Your post is also an interesting example of the relationship of news outlets to readers.

The line from the New York Times is wrong as far as the use of the words Second Life; it was referring to an archived region/build originally from Second Life. This is a factual error.

The WWG article went astray because it was a digest of an article from another source, which was linked to and which was accurate. The digest mistook the location of the London City region organizers for the location of the Second Life infrastructure but the mistake wasn't in the original article.

The MIT article, however, doesn't imply that Sansar is a "direct successor" to Second Life as far as I can see; it says it's by the same maker and is generally the same type of thing, which is true. The title of the article took some artistic license to use the sort of pun that's often irresistable to headline writers, but there was nothing inaccurate in the article. In this case you were the one who did the misinterpreting. And by posting this you made yourself a "news site article."

[sirhc DeSantis]

Accurate analysis. The WWG really was a rehash done badly and without a clue. The NYT gets a grudging pass as it took a jab at the Glass thing plus was really angled at specific use as opposed to technology.

The MIT piece - only adding there was not a lot actually new there (seen Metz'  stuff before so not exactly surprised) but an interesting line :

'...The places I saw that were built by Linden Lab look better and are less buggy than two that are being built by users.'

Oops.

I put the cost number down to lazy reporting

[Talligurl]

News today is another form of entertainment because the vast majority of people prefer to be entertained rather than informed. 

[lucagrabacr]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

lucagrabacr wrote:

I'm totally fine with opinion piece regarding Second Life, whether it's with or against it, critics and whatnot. But when they are stating things that are clearly factually incorrect and present them as facts, it's just wrong, and the fact that their mistakes put SL in bad light only made it worse. These are not kids messing around in SL and then put it on YT or people posting articles on satire sites, these people are grown ups working for trusted news outlets who have the responsibility to make sure they don't do stupid things like these.  

This New York Times article

said Second Life is a "defunct alternate-universe game from the early 2000s"

This MIT Technology Review article

implied that Sansar is a direct successor to Second Life.

This WWG Article

implied that Second Life is based in the UK

And those are just some of the recent ones. We shouldn't let this kind of thing keep on happening. it's outrageous. I've publicly contacted the writers about their mistakes, but I suppose it would get their attention more if I'm not being the only one voicing my concern about this kind of recklessness. 

---

Your post is also an interesting example of the relationship of news outlets to

readers.

The line from the New York Times is wrong as far as the use of the words Second Life; it was referring to an archived region/build originally

from

Second Life. This is a factual error.

The WWG article went astray because it was a digest of an article from another source, which was linked to and which was accurate. The

digest

mistook the location of the London City region organizers for the location of the Second Life infrastructure but the mistake wasn't in the original article.

The MIT article, however,

doesn't

imply that Sansar is a "direct successor" to Second Life as far as I can see; it says it's by the same maker and is generally the same type of thing,

which is true.

The title of the article took some artistic license to use the sort of pun that's often irresistable to headline writers, but there was nothing inaccurate in the article. In this case

you

were the one who did the misinterpreting. And by posting this you made

yourself

a "news site article."

---

The NYT article: Trust me when I say that I took some time to process the wording used by the writer, "an offline computer running an archived copy of Second Life: a defunct alternate-universe game from the early 2000s" the writer was clearly not referring to the archived copy, he was referring to Second Life and it's clear that it was what he meant. I don't think an NYT writer would make such a mistake in trying to convey what he meant through his writing.

The WWG article: I know, I even watched the video from Kotaku. Making such mistake because they are only "reblogging" the article isn't an excuse.

The MIT article: The title said, "Second Life Is Back for a Third Life, This Time in Virtual Reality", it is obvious that she meant to imply that Sansar is SL's successor. Artistic freedom and whatnot, there's a fine line between clickbait headline and misleading headline, this was obviously the latter.

And lastly I apologize if I came out as being overzealous, but I believe that my irritation is justified. SL is a brand and service that I, and I believe many other people hold dearly for one reason or another. Imagine if a news article mistake Apple as being a company that's "based in China", or that Yahoo is a "defunct web and email services from some yesteryear", what fan wouldn't be outraged.

 

[FellicityVixen]

I find that *news* trying to cover any sort of...game, internet, virtual reality, etc are often lacking research, extremely biased and condescending, and do not see the potential, respect the community, or care about the damage done to the image of that which they report.  I especially hate the kind of stereotypical loner type loser image that people who are into computers, the internet, gaming, youtube, blogging, niche hobbies, etc STILL get, even in this age of facebook, twitter, instagram, as well as brands and companies trying to reach customers this way more and more.

There is a weird documentary on Youtube covering Second Life, and the biased is that they cover the story of two people in world who meet and end up dating each other- except that the woman is married with a child, and throws all that away for a fantasy man.  I mean, this is NOT a unique situation to Second Life, and it does nothing to highlight Second Life itself- just this drama with this couple which is facillitated via Second Life (it could easily have been facebook, World of Warcraft, Instagram, etc).

As you've also highlighted, there's also the clickbait-title articles that try to imply that Second Life is in dire trouble, and that Sansar will be it's new rebirth or something.  Again, this is a disrespect to the people who thoroughly enjoy and work at Second Life currently.

I've seen this kind of biased reporting about Youtube as well.  In particular, I've seen a lot of bad articles dismissing the success of PewdiePie, I've seen Jimmy Kimmel do a highly awkward and offensive youtube video featuring Markiplier and TheMissesMae- and try to market this as a factual insight as to how youtubers record a gaming video.

The irony of this is that I just DO NOT understand why youtube(or maybe I should say Google) would support big name TV shows and personalities over their extremely popular home-grown youtubers.  Should the Jimmy Kimmels, Jimmy Fallons, Ellens, James Cordons and Wendy Williams (among others) should decide ONLY to broadcast their shows on Tv (their ORIGINAL medium), then all the channels and personalities that youtube have shafted would be needed far more than ever.  And I'm sure that for SO MANY people, they go onto the internet and onto Youtube to ESCAPE the same commercial big bucks, mediocre content that those same names do over and over- as people are more and more bored them.

So I believe that, unfortunately, the internet is getting saturated with clickbait crap content from big bucks commercial sources that SHOULD know better, but think they have to do such low tactics to attract readers.  A lot like the spamming, deceptive tactics of many other things these days to try and earn a buck.  In the end, I just stop reading article-type websites, even if it means I feel out of the loop about a lot of current affairs.

[lucagrabacr]

---

FellicityVixen wrote:

I find that *news* trying to cover any sort of...game, internet, virtual reality, etc are often lacking research, extremely biased and condescending, and do not see the potential, respect the community, or care about the damage done to the image of that which they report.  I especially hate the kind of stereotypical loner type loser image that people who are into computers, the internet, gaming, youtube, blogging, niche hobbies, etc STILL get, even in this age of facebook, twitter, instagram, as well as brands and companies trying to reach customers this way more and more.

There is a weird documentary on Youtube covering Second Life, and the biased is that they cover the story of two people in world who meet and end up dating each other- except that the woman is married with a child, and throws all that away for a fantasy man.  I mean, this is NOT a unique situation to Second Life, and it does nothing to highlight Second Life itself- just this drama with this couple which is facillitated via Second Life (it could easily have been facebook, World of Warcraft, Instagram, etc).

As you've also highlighted, there's also the clickbait-title articles that try to imply that Second Life is in dire trouble, and that Sansar will be it's new rebirth or something.  Again, this is a disrespect to the people who thoroughly enjoy and work at Second Life currently.

I've seen this kind of biased reporting about Youtube as well.  In particular, I've seen a lot of bad articles dismissing the success of PewdiePie, I've seen Jimmy Kimmel do a highly awkward and offensive youtube video featuring Markiplier and TheMissesMae- and try to market this as a factual insight as to how youtubers record a gaming video.

The irony of this is that I just DO NOT understand why youtube(or maybe I should say Google) would support big name TV shows and personalities over their extremely popular home-grown youtubers.  Should the Jimmy Kimmels, Jimmy Fallons, Ellens, James Cordons and Wendy Williams (among others) should decide ONLY to broadcast their shows on Tv (their ORIGINAL medium), then all the channels and personalities that youtube have shafted would be needed far more than ever.  And I'm sure that for SO MANY people, they go onto the internet and onto Youtube to ESCAPE the same commercial big bucks, mediocre content that those same names do over and over- as people are more and more bored them.

So I believe that, unfortunately, the internet is getting saturated with clickbait crap content from big bucks commercial sources that SHOULD know better, but think they have to do such low tactics to attract readers.  A lot like the spamming, deceptive tactics of many other things these days to try and earn a buck.  In the end, I just stop reading article-type websites, even if it means I feel out of the loop about a lot of current affairs.

---

Yeah, it's really a shame indeed. I just wished that by nudging them a bit would clear a bit or two of misinformation that spits on SL

[Theresa Tennyson]

---

lucagrabacr wrote:

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

---

lucagrabacr wrote:

I'm totally fine with opinion piece regarding Second Life, whether it's with or against it, critics and whatnot. But when they are stating things that are clearly factually incorrect and present them as facts, it's just wrong, and the fact that their mistakes put SL in bad light only made it worse. These are not kids messing around in SL and then put it on YT or people posting articles on satire sites, these people are grown ups working for trusted news outlets who have the responsibility to make sure they don't do stupid things like these.  

This New York Times article

said Second Life is a "defunct alternate-universe game from the early 2000s"

This MIT Technology Review article

implied that Sansar is a direct successor to Second Life.

This WWG Article

implied that Second Life is based in the UK

And those are just some of the recent ones. We shouldn't let this kind of thing keep on happening. it's outrageous. I've publicly contacted the writers about their mistakes, but I suppose it would get their attention more if I'm not being the only one voicing my concern about this kind of recklessness. 

---

Your post is also an interesting example of the relationship of news outlets to

readers.

The line from the New York Times is wrong as far as the use of the words Second Life; it was referring to an archived region/build originally

from

Second Life. This is a factual error.

The WWG article went astray because it was a digest of an article from another source, which was linked to and which was accurate. The

digest

mistook the location of the London City region organizers for the location of the Second Life infrastructure but the mistake wasn't in the original article.

The MIT article, however,

doesn't

imply that Sansar is a "direct successor" to Second Life as far as I can see; it says it's by the same maker and is generally the same type of thing,

which is true.

The title of the article took some artistic license to use the sort of pun that's often irresistable to headline writers, but there was nothing inaccurate in the article. In this case

you

were the one who did the misinterpreting. And by posting this you made

yourself

a "news site article."

---

The NYT article: Trust me when I say that I took some time to process the wording used by the writer,

"

an offline computer running an archived copy of Second Life: a defunct alternate-universe game from the early 2000s

"

the writer

was clearly not 

referring to the archived copy, he was referring to Second Life and it's clear that it was what he meant. I don't think an NYT writer would make such a mistake in trying to convey what he meant through his writing.

The WWG article: I know, I even watched the video from Kotaku. Making such mistake because they are only "reblogging" the article isn't an excuse.

The MIT article: The title said, "

Second Life Is Back for a Third Life,

This Time in Virtual Reality", it is obvious that she meant to imply that Sansar is SL's successor. Artistic freedom and whatnot, there's a fine line between clickbait headline and misleading headline, this was obviously the latter.

And lastly I apologize if I came out as being overzealous, but I believe that my irritation is justified. SL is a brand and service that I, and I believe many other people hold dearly for one reason or another. Imagine if a news article mistake Apple as being a company that's "based in China", or that Yahoo is a "defunct web and email services from some yesteryear", what fan wouldn't be outraged.

 

---

And here you appear to be misinterpreting again. What I said about the NYT article:

The line from the New York Times is wrong as far as the use of the words Second Life; it was referring to an archived region/build originally from Second Life. This is a factual error.

What I meant was that you were correct in your original post and that what the New York Times wrote was an error.  I was agreeing with you. I was also agreeing with you on the WWG article. I wasn't defending the writer, I was clarifying what they did. Note that I said "however" before my comment on the MIT article, where I was disagreeing with you.

Your reply seems to suggest that you thought I was disagreeing with you on all the articles, though. And that was my point - that any piece of writing might be seen as something different from what the writer intended, and even "errors" may be errors of the reader to see the meaning that the writer intended.

 

 

[lucagrabacr]

---

Theresa Tennyson wrote:

What I

meant

was that you were correct in your original post and that what the

New York Times

wrote was an error. 

I was agreeing with you.

I was also agreeing with you on the WWG article. I wasn't defending the writer, I was clarifying what they did. Note that I said "however" before my comment on the MIT article, where I

was

disagreeing with you.

Your reply seems to suggest that you thought I was disagreeing with you on

all

the articles, though. And that was my point - that any piece of writing might be seen as something different from what the writer intended, and even "errors" may be errors of the reader to see the meaning that the writer intended.

---

Oh my, my apologies then. Yeah, I thought you disagreed, I'm really sorry about that. I do however still believe that these writers are generally neglectful in their writings which to my eyes is a sign of a lack of respect towards the subject of their writings, else they would've been more careful and thorough.