Wikipedia Documents Fake Syndication Format

Ever wonder how long a hoax page could last on Wikipedia if the subject was technical enough to scare off most readers? The answer appears to be six months.

I recently discovered the Wikipedia page for RDX, a syndication format that doesn't exist outside of the encyclopedia and the mind of its creator. I thought I had heard of every feed format after four years on the RSS Advisory Board, but RDX was new to me, so I did a little digging into the subject.

As far as I can determine, every single thing in the article is bogus.

RDX (file format)

RDX is an alternative Web feed format that is a confluence of the widely adopted RSS file format and RDF, another XML format. RDX was created to extend the functionality of RSS while maintaining the usability and readability of the RSS format. By re-introducing RDF elements to the structure of the file, RDX can be use to not only publish blog entries, news headlines or podcasts but also model mutating data.

RDX works under the assumption that data models are prone to growth change in an isomorphic process. By including RDF resources and traits, the relationship between the original RDX document and it's progeny can be reasonably assumed and associated.

The initials "RDX" have been assumed to mean:

Readux

RDF Extended

RSS Description Framework

History

RDX was developed originally as an adjunct file format to the HomeKey research project. The project's aim was to create a program that could address concerns in Ubiquitous Computing, Information Design, data organization as well as language and semantics. The project was named HomeKey for its intense use of symbols beginning with a "House" and a "Key". HomeKey relies heavily on the use of Universal symbols and signs - with applications in personal, education, business, medical and mobile visualization and organization of heterogeneous data. The project was begun in January 2002 and lives today at http://www.homekey.cc.

The project was funded by a stipend awarded by Loyola University & the U.S. Department of Education through the FIPSE/MSEIP Grant (Minority Science & Engineering Improvement Program) in 2003. Research was done in semiology, ethnographic statistics, human computer interaction, design patterns, heuristic evaluations and topology. The code contains libraries programmed in HTML, XML, JavaScript/DOM, XSL, Actionscript, PHP, ColdFusion, Python, Perl, Java and C++.

RDX was envisioned to be the transport language inside of the system, allowing data exchange between different modules as well as textual publication of visual concepts. Moreover, RDX was meant to provide the textual corpus of converted normal web documents into a format that HomeKey could understand. Essentially a glorified meta document, RDX would also be publishable through RSS readers and viewable as XHTML in modern web browsers.

Relationships

RDX stands as a confluence of major standards to maintain interoperability with current technologies and file processors. An example of this kind of compatibility is shown by RDX validating as RSS 2.0 when the version tag is renamed to . RDX achieves standardization by using a similar hierarchy and structure as RSS including the channel and item tags.

RDX, as well, allows XHTML to be embed within a description tag. Additionally, because microformats are pure XHTML, the RDX specification permits this sort of vertical integration of code. Also, similar to the original RSS versions, RDX includes in its specification the incorporation of the file type with RDF and RDFS syntax. A practical case of this methodology is the optional inclusion of Dublin Core Metadata Initiative tags to append metadata within the RDX specified Information tags.

Because none of these inclusions are mandatory, RDX can be thought to be analogous to an overloaded RSS format.

See also

Microformats

RSS (file format)

Atom (standard)

RDF

RDFS (RDF Schema)

External links

http://www.homekey.cc

http://www.validome.org/rss-atom/

http://feedjumbler.com/

http://norman.walsh.name/2003/05/22/rssrdf

http://www.rss-to-javascript.com/p/138.html

http://edd.oreillynet.com/stories/storyReader$65

http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/10/25/dublincore/index.html

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-wxxm30.html

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nylon/0607/index.php

The article has been around since last October. None of the links have anything to do with RDX and there's no RDX specification to be found anywhere. The domains homekey.cc and readux.org are owned by Victor Nwankwo, a Columbia University student who edits Wikipedia as Victorganic and appears to have a rich inner life imagining logos, industry groups and trade publications for his syndication format.

Wikipedia · Rss · 2008/04/17 · 11 COMMENTS · Link

Comments

Don't click on homekey.cc, there is nothing there and it sets of the virus detector.

#1 · bla · 2008/04/17

A grand unified theory of syndication!

#2 · Sterling Camden · 2008/04/17

I'm not getting virus warnings at homekey.cc, but it is stuck in a Javascript loop on Internet Explorer. I removed the links to that URL, which just contains a graphical "X" and nothing else.

#3 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2008/04/17

Huh. I've placed a proposed deletion notice on it, fwiw.

Yeah, there's a lot of rubbish in the backwaters of Wikipedia. Most of it *looks* crappy, so is easily spotted ...

#4 · David Gerard · 2008/04/17

Wikipedia is ripe for corruption.

#5 · Rex · 2008/04/17

The key to sustaining fake information online is writing in a bland, factual style that resists appearing 'creative' -- I wrote a well-researched fake history of a model stealth fighter on my shelf, which fooled quite a few people (despite the 'fiction' tag at the bottom)...although fooling people in a tinfoil-hat-genre of fiction isn't too hard. This is also why articles written factually and matter-of-factly about characters in books, film, and role-playing games sometimes get a bit too mixed with reality; Wikipedia's style requirements blur that line significantly, and Wiki's undeserved status as a rock-solid information source obscures fakeness even more -- like what Mark Twain wrote in 1903 during his time with the Roycrofters: "if it's in the Times, it must be true."

#6 · Derek D · 2008/04/25

I found it amazing how fast information was removed on Wiki! Self-interest acts at a significant percentage of the speed of light!

I have posted information, told by Otto Skorzeny, one of the German heroes of WWII, and who was an informal guest speaker at an Officer Candidate's School class I attended. However, it has been removed each of the three times I've posted it.

It concerned Dresden and the firebombing. Skorzeny indicated that he knew the Allies bombed because they feared that Hitler would have a nuclear bomb, if they allowed heavy water (vital to the bomb's developement and building) supplies to be used. In that regard, the Allies bombed Frankfurt, a main seaport for inland transport of water from Norway to its suspected usage site: Dresden and because the Allies had not bombed there, previously and it was Germany's center for scientific education/research.

I think my ancedotal information is removed because it provides an excuse, if not a humanitarian reason, for firebombing those two cities, and with the consequent damage it caused. Those who hate the USA will do anything to continue demeaning the USA and all its motives and reasons for supporting freedom around the world.It also demonstrates how far down the "chain" the socialist sycophant haters of America will go to further their hopes to make their personal hatred a defeat for America ...

#7 · tadowe · 2008/05/03

It sounds to me like you're running into Wikipedia's no original research policy.

#8 · Rogers Cadenhead · 2008/05/03

"It sounds to me like you're running into Wikipedia's no original research policy."

My comments were ancedotal and clearly explained the circumstances of the incident. All such "explanations" for reasoning the events surrounding the firebombing of Dresden are similarly hearsay; often from involved individuals who may have had access to only one "reason" for the firebombing, and which represents "compartmentation" of intelligence and on a need-to-know basis.

Indeed, the inference(s) given as "motive" for the bombing are almost universally anti-American in sentiment, but remain unredacted at speeds of such sufficiency as to amaze any red-pen martinet!

Skorzeny may have only part of the reasoning behind bombing Dresden, but is far more believable, in my estimation, than supposing some need for a petuland, if sadistic, Allied Vengeance for the loss at Dunkirk, the bombing of London, or because the Zionists demanded revenge for the camps; along with the other negative characterizations made of the USA/Allies in advancing the war.

Seemingly, a report of expert opinion, providing an understandable reason which had the potential to save millions of lives, MUST be removed, and whereas even less reasonable supposition concerning Allied response in revenge remains. Those reports are hearsay reports from lower level persons involved in those actions, and as was Skorzeny and the German reasoning for the attacks -- not Allied vengeance!

Indeed, my report isn't original in concept: that the Allies attacked to try and stop, delay or destroy heavy water shipments which they thought had taken place from Telemark (check dates of military actions) and why Frankfurt was included in the firebombing, as the main seaport to river transport to Dresden, and beyond. That and any possible research facility which they thought might be located in the scientific/university center of Germany, and the potential end point for the heavy water shipments.

However, it is a theory which remains obscure because those who wish to demean the USA edit any such reasonable explanation for the firebombing ...

#9 · tadowe · 2008/05/04

Perhaps the Wikipedia propaganda machine is similar to the internet "landrush" on site names ... those with the first submission "rule" the subject ... and can "manage" it thereafter ... truth by being firstest?

#10 · tadowe · 2008/05/15