When Yahoo posts a story on its homepage, that makes that story true, correct?
Not so fast – because on the Internet where content is often replicated without any references and quotations of valid sources, the fine line between fact and fiction can become quite thin.
Yesterday, Yahoo posted the following story right smack on the popular portal’s homepage: The largest snowflake ever reported.
Yahoo nonchalantly talks about the largest snowflake ever recorded.
The assorted image of a child playing in a snowstorm with abundant – but normally sized – snowflakes, contained the teaser text:
The person who found it more than a century ago, described it as ‘larger than milk pans’.
Milk pans? Did they try to melt the snowflake or was every good old boy using milk pans as a method of measurement these days?
By clicking on that article link on the Yahoo homepage, we are then re-directed to Yahoo’s very own “Yahoo Answers” – a depository of user-asked questions and answers, rated by some means of accepted accuracy by those who asked the questions or by popular vote.
For added linking juice, Yahoo points to its very own Yahoo Answers database.
The answer, referencing the incredible dimensions of a snowflake that was sighted in 1887 and measuring “15 inches wide and 8 inches thick” then points to a web site URL called ‘Very Very Fun”.
And that’s where the fun begins.
Onto that web site, it’s obvious from its “content farm” look and feel that we are not exactly viewing Encyclopaedia Britannica’s science section. Full of AdSense ads and assorted ‘cheesy’ images, the article quotes the Guinness Book of World Records as its source.
The Very Very Fun web site quotes the Guinness Book of World Records.
Naturally, our quest for the world’s largest snowflake continued onto the web site of Guinness Book of World Records, which does not reside at Guinness.com by the way.
Once there, we clicked on the “Find a Record” option and despite searching for “largest snowflake” or even plain “snowflake” there were no results.
No reference to a record about "largest snowflake" can be found!
So was that reference of a largest snowflake record in the Guinness Book of World Records a hoax, replicated by content farms and Yahoo Answers quotes?
Who would give us a trustworthy answer?
Further search for “largest snowflake” in Google produced the same replicated references to the non-existent record on the Guinness Book of World Records. Examples varied and one such site listed other “facts”, such as the longest human feces at 12ft and 2 inches.
Exciting stuff. So we searched on and finally landed on a April 11, 2005 weather FAQ snippet from USA Today.
Normally, such a quotation by a trustworthy publication would end our quest but unfortunately the USA Today snippet added the following statement:
When I did a Google search for this answer, several sites declared that the largest snowflake ever recorded was 8 inches wide, but no attributions were given for this record.
Yikes. So did the USA Today guys replicate a rumor just by searching Google and accepting the results as an instant fact?
Thankfully, the USA Today article provided a link to the Guinness Book of World Records that had been used as the source. And of course, today being our lucky day, that very link is not active anymore!
Did we give up at this point? Hell no!
Our last resource: The Wayback Machine at Archive.org
Lo and behold, some light finally: the aforementioned URL existed in 2005 and its very content will surprise you!
So we finally had the original source of the article and subsequent Yahoo story “coverage”.
In 2005 the Guinness Book of World Records' web site contained this very questionable entry about the "largest snowflake" on record; no such reference exists today.
The real question remains though: why did the Guinness Book of World Records remove the “largest snowflake” reference since its 2005 publication?
Maybe because anyone gullible enough to believe that a 15 inch by 8 inch snowflake actually existed in 1887 must be locked up – or be made into a separate entry under the “biggest idiot” category 😀
It is reported that on Jan 28, 1887 that a ranch owner in Montana smoked a little too much cow patty.
Excuse me…How much time did you spend on this ? and what your point and knowing what you know now, will this knowledge solve world hunger, global warming, terrorism, poverty, discrimination and all the evils of the world.
I already told you, it is useless BS info.
Have a good Sunday at church with Sister DomainMissyLee
“…on Jan 28, 1887…a ranch owner in Montana smoked a little too much cow patty”
that measured “15 inches wide and 8 inches thick”.
🙂
Tia – That must have been one heavenly cow 😀
BullS – And that proves we research every “100%” article all the way 😀
Tric – You found the secret! It was the “biggest cow patty” that I should be searching for instead at the Guinness Book of World Records!
Just passing by to read an interesting article and see mean comment, so for once I’ll reply.
To Bulls : and you think that you bring salvation to the wolrd by criticizing his work? As you surely learn in your church about the “evils of the world”, the planet doesn’t need us to survive, we are just kiling her.
So how about you take some action and stop breathing?
You know, they did have cameras in 1876… But probably not in Montana LOL!