I see that even the word “context” does not exist for some posters. Once again, it is the charlatans surrounding good advice around misleading information is what makes it a lie. (And for the 100th time: it is good advice)
Like Brian Ekers said, what the charlatans out there want is to plant the suggestion that they have the support of the evidence, so even if the reader does goes looking, he has a preconceived notion that the version of the charlatan is the truth.
Indeed, I was going to say that before I claimed that the end result of the good advice in the words of a charlatan is to prove the charlatan to be a liar twice over like in the case of Monckton; in my case with the Snopes item, I knew already that even on Snopes that misleading tactic was reported to be used already, Jas09 demonstrates that I was telling the truth, the information was already out there and I actually did remember being it mentioned before on the dope and Snopes, it is not impossible to check for the information, the bottom line is that I was not worried to be confirmed correct by others (This is the important bit, that others do demonstrate an ability to search for information, it is really silly to claim in this age of Google that one has to rely on just a single poster on the internet).
What I do know is that deniers like Monckton are not afraid of the ones that do check elsewhere because they do know that many will continue to not do the checking part.
Well, other people were saying it first, I was just pointing out a variant.
Version 1: I believe something is true because of evidence and support (i.e. from Snopes), which I expect at least some of you will take my word does exist and will repeat my claim.
Version 2: [the one I pointed out] I believe something is false because of a lack of reliable evidence and support, which I expect some of you will take my word does not exist and will repeat my claim.
I was reminded of the latter by a poster here just in the last few weeks who, before he was banned, parroted the old denier mantra: “Show me some evidence, just one piece of evidence!” He didn’t want evidence, wouldn’t know what to do with it. What he wanted was other people to start saying “Yeah! Where is the evidence?”
For awhile it was in vogue to put a disclaimer at the top too. Something like “If you’re a liberal that hates America don’t read this. Just delete it now. Your (sic) too blinded to see the truth”. Maybe they thought that would keep people from sending debunking responses.
In my opinion, the Mikkelsens ARE liberals, and their political opinions regularly seep into their work.
I STILL think they’re generally ACCURATE, which is far more important to me than being unbiased.
The same holds true for most media outlets. The New York Times is DEFINITELY biased… but if they print a front page story reporting that, say, one of my favorite Republican politicians took bribes, I’ll almost always assume the Times story is factually correct.
So, MOST of the time, I’ll accept a report from the Mikkelsens, since I USUALLY assume they’ve done the proper diligent reasearch. When I disagree with them, it rarely has anything to do with their political slant. rather, I think they’re sometimes too quick to make categorical assertions that their own research doesn’t quite justify.
The freepers are just butthurt from the Clinton days when they were trying to spread the ‘Clinton Death List’ around at every corner and snopes was the biggest quick way to stop the nonsense. Freepers get mighty whiny when their fantasies fall apart, which is all the time.
What’s insignificant for one story might be significant in terms of the overall impact.
Suppose the NYT had a regular policy of reporting Republican bribe-takers on the front page while burying stories of Demoratic ones. That would create a distortion of the relative honesty among the two parties, even if each individual story was accurate.
I always like it when they do that because it lets me know right from the start that the penis enlargement spam in my Trash folder would like some company.
Does Snopes have a front page?
Does Snopes have any method of “burying” Pro-Right wing stories or Anti-Left wing stories?
Claiming that someone might possibly slant their stories is not the same as providing evidence that they have. Without that evidence, I am more likely to accept the testimony of a self-proclaimed conservative such as Astorian than the mutterings from Freepers.
It really would be silly. It would be almost – but not quite – as silly as thinking someone made that claim. It would even be quite the straw man!
Er, yes, that’s wonderful: you made a claim, so I naturally figured you could already supply support for it – and, this being the SDMB, it’s equally unsurprising that another poster swiftly did so before you lifted a finger. You’re acting as if there’s something remarkable about an entirely unremarkable chain of events.
Now besides context also past experiences never took place.
The bottom line is that I was correct and many others (not just one poster or source) support what I say, and they show indeed something that it seems to be a miracle for you: the capacity of finding good evidence without demanding to use training wheels.
The folks at About.com noticed also that the meme that claims Snopes is biased to the left was, as if one should need to guess, another forwarded email from 2008 just before the election:
