If You're a Snopes User...

[hjames]

I took the time to read a little about the company, it's founders, their divorce, and subsequent business dealings that led to this problem. No way to verify what I read, but I think it's a pretty sad state of affairs when someone who had made bad life/business decisions resorts to begging money from John Q Public to bail them out of their problems.

This may end up being one o those situations where the attorneys end up with all the money. Can't say it breaks my heart.

Do you really have any idea what kind of resources are required to run a high volume website like SNOPES?
Divorce or not, the bandwidth (and the staff hours) needed for a site like Snopes are pretty spectacular.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snopes.com
There is info in the final paragraphs there about 2017 lawsuits at SNOPES ... he said, she said, and more - (as most divorces go ...)
That said, the nature of wikipedia is that its probably getting edited frequently by both arguing parties (pro husband or pro-wife) - and since SNOPES disputes some of the more serious fake news floating around, taking down SNOPES could mean a lot of the more hateful political lies could persist ...

Anymore and I'll get accused of being too political, so I'll drop that here ...

 

[goat67]

I doubt there is a single completely perfect and unbiased media outlet anywhere. My impression is they do a pretty good job. Without trying to get into a debate, I'd welcome a link to any kind of reasonable study or analysis showing bias.

Here is a link from Forbes with some info on the inner working of snopes https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevl...fact-checking-the-fact-checkers/#8d9d9e4227f8

 

[c.coyle]

Snopes is great for static, objective facts: Has Charles Manson been paroled? Is Waste Management offering dead body pickups? Silly stuff you see on Facebook.

It is not as good for anything involving gray areas or subjective opinions.

 

[c.coyle]

Snopes is inherently political and this thread is innapropriate here.

Nonsense

 

[bshorey]

I never thought of Snopes as political. I just took a quick look at their home page, and saw articles about John Lennon, whales, and cancer vaccines. Maybe now, it is leaning toward more politics with all the "alternative facts" floating around in the political environment, but there is plenty of non-political info there.

If attempting to discover and share the truth about various subjects is thought of as political, then we really are in trouble.

I have always used Snopes to get to the bottom of all the weird and wacky things I come across on the internet. Sure, maybe a few of those things are in the realm of government, but I would never call the entire site inherently political.

Not political? Are we looking at the same site? I just went and visited, and here are the first four articles that showed up for me:

"Trump’s New Communications Director Attacks White House Colleagues in Foul-Mouthed Rant"
"Russia Cuts Number of United States Diplomats in Response to Senate Bill"
"Senate Rejects Partial Repeal of Obamacare in Dramatic Late-Night Vote"
"House Enacts ‘Martial Law’ as Senators Grapple With ‘Skinny’ Partial Obamacare Repeal"

Snopes was great until they delved into politics. I still go there from time to time, but they are not the first site I use for fact checking anymore.

bs

 

[usedto]

Do you really have any idea what kind of resources are required to run a high volume website like SNOPES?

I have a good idea. I started my own business with my wife in 1981, raised a family, put two kids through college, paid for my home and business property, paid for all of my inventory and equipment to run the business. But I didn't do anything anyone else couldn't have done. Same for SNOPES. It doesn't do anything you can't do yourself - it just does it for you.

If you go back and read my original post, I never questioned what they did or what service they provided. My issue is that they made poor life/business decisions, and instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, opted to go begging for dollars.

... he said, she said, and SNOPES said....

 

[c.coyle]

Not political? Are we looking at the same site? I just went and visited, and here are the first four articles that showed up for me:

"Trump’s New Communications Director Attacks White House Colleagues in Foul-Mouthed Rant"

Objectively true. Among other things, he dropped multiple F-bombs and accused a WH colleague of performing a certain act upon himself.

"Russia Cuts Number of United States Diplomats in Response to Senate Bill"

Objectively true. The number dropped from about 1,100 to 445.

"Senate Rejects Partial Repeal of Obamacare in Dramatic Late-Night Vote"

Objectively true. The vote was 51 to 49

"House Enacts ‘Martial Law’ as Senators Grapple With ‘Skinny’ Partial Obamacare Repeal"

Objectively true. House Republicans are attempting to waive chamber rules mandating they wait three days after a bill is made public to vote on the legislation on the floor, what's known as "martial law" in the House. EDIT: A term that is apparently used by house members themselves.

was great until they delved into politics. I still go there from time to time, but they are not the first site I use for fact checking anymore.

bs

So you object to them posting anything at all about politics. OK. I see nothing wrong with facts like above, as opposed to subjective opinions.

 

[hjames]

Apparently you DON'T have any idea what it takes to run a high volume WEBSITE ...

My brother runs a 6 bay garage business - he grew that business from sweat equity,
and his wife is also quite involved in the business. He put 2 kids through college, careers and marriage.
He bought the land and the buildings, refurbed them over the years and has done VERY well.
I applaud him for making a go of that - but its not a website,
which is a radically different kind of business.

There is no physical plant nor inventory for a website - its basically making money on a concept in thin air.
and it can go from 10mph to 250mph very suddenly - a physical business rarely has that kind of growth.

I never posted a Go Fund Me request in my life,
but that isn't really the point here, tho it seems to be the hot button for you ...

I have a good idea. I started my own business with my wife in 1981, raised a family, put two kids through college, paid for my home and business property, paid for all of my inventory and equipment to run the business. But I didn't do anything anyone else couldn't have done. Same for SNOPES. It doesn't do anything you can't do yourself - it just does it for you.

If you go back and read my original post, I never questioned what they did or what service they provided. My issue is that they made poor life/business decisions, and instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, opted to go begging for dollars.

 

[c.coyle]

I think Snopes went wrong when they abandoned just "TRUE" or "FALSE" and went to various degrees of in between.

 

[SA-708]

That's reality. Not everything can be proven true or false. Mathematically proven by Kurt Gödel's incompleteness theorems.

 

[usedto]

Apparently you DON'T have any idea what it takes to run a high volume WEBSITE ...

Running a website, high volume or otherwise, is a job, just like anything else. That's why there's millions of them. No harder, no easier. It doesn't take any more or less effort to be successful. You just have to work at it. Just like your brother did with his garage.

tho it seems to be the hot button for you ...

Yep. My business had it's lean times, but I'll be damned if I'd go out begging for money because I made bad decisions. Save the "Go Fund Me" efforts for people who really need/deserve it.

 

[SA-708]

I've known David & Barbara (online) since the old days of alt.folklore.urban, before they turned an archive of that Usenet group into their business. Personally, i'm sitting this one out.

Man, I miss those old glory days of Usenet.

 

[toxcrusadr]

I USED TO have a good deal of respect for your opinion.

Of all the banter in this thread, this concerns me the most. I would never want this kind of thing to interfere with what AK is all about.

I admit their headlines these days (strictly on political stories) may appear biased, aside from the factuality of the contents. I actually don't read most of that stuff, I'm looking for the weird stuff.

I always went to Snopes for the urban legend and rumor stories. They have been very valuable for that over the years, and there is quite an archive of topics that seem to recirculate around the net every few years. I think they still do an excellent job in this department.

However, I may not have taken into account some of the other changes and how they make the site look. If it's not your cup of tea, OK.

I still haven't seen anyone post a link to another site that is as thorough and comprehensive on questions like "Are bananas being injected with HIV infected blood?" or "Is this picture of John Lennon playing guitar with Che Guevara real?" or "Are Ecstasy laced gummi bears being given out to children at Halloween?" If anyone knows a site that does a better job at this stuff year after year, I'd love to hear about it.

I certainly didn't want, or expect, this thread to be a problem.

 

[Alobar]

I have not used it in a long while but when it came in handy was in how some pretty baseless sounding "facts" would irritatingly be circulated around by friends and family. When someone would send me one of these bs stories I could just cut and paste it into snopes and get the history of its origins, how it often was used at different times, sometimes with different players involved .

 

[Pio1980]

I use SNOPES to respond to chain email nonsense and fact check unverified statements. It's a very useful resource for well researched verification.

 

[bshorey]

<snip>

So you object to them posting anything at all about politics. OK. I see nothing wrong with facts like above, as opposed to subjective opinions.

If they're biased, and if politics are dominating the site, then yeah. But that's just me. I enjoyed Snopes when it was *the* place to go to verify all the ridiculous urban rumors that people propagated on the Internet. If they want to focus on politics that's fine, but for me it's becoming just another site that's blathering away at one political party of the other.

bs

 

[stereofanboy]

. . . since SNOPES disputes some of the more serious fake news floating around, taking down SNOPES could mean a lot of the more hateful political lies could persist...

I doubt that many leave the SNOPES site having changed their view on hateful political lies. If SNOPES confirms what you already thought, great! If not, well they're just lying.

See how that works?

 

[RichPA]

You folks were warned once to keep politics out of this thread. Done.