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This Is What Social Software Can Do

The <a href="http://blog.flickr.com/flickrblog/2006/03/this_is_what_fl.html" title="FlickrBlog">FlickrBlog</a> reports this message from <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/yeimaya/">Gale</a>: <blockquote>People have been submitting good humpback whale fluke shots to a group called <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/humpbackflukes">Humpback whale flukes</a>. I volunteer at <a href="http://www.coa.edu/alliedwhale">Allied Whale</a> which holds the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catalog and I was able to make a very exciting match with one of the whales that was posted on the group by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25212853@N00/88329014/in/pool-humpbackflukes/">GeorgeK</a>. George saw this whale in Newfoundland in the summer of 2005. It <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/25212853@N00/88329014/#comment72057594077150312">matched with</a> HWC#2943 in the North Atlantic Humpback Whale Catolog ..... this whale was seen only once before in March 1984!!! on Silver Bank (the breeding grounds North of the Dominican Republic). This is what flickr has the power to do.</blockquote> » about 300 words

False: Whale Watching On Lake Michigan

Way back in 2003, ClassroomHelp.com published a story on whale watching in Lake Michigan. As it turns out, the info was based on content on a Geocities.com member page that suggests they book trips to see and swim with marine fauna in the Great Lakes. Unfortunately, ClassroomHelp.com later posted a retraction saying “we thought it was true …it looked so real. It looked like a legitimate Web site.” Jim Wenzloff notes

we asked some marine biologists in Michigan if they knew anything about whales in Lake Michigan. They didn’t know what we were talking about. Searches on the Internet were not very fruitful. Of all the information floating around cyber space, we found only three sites on freshwater whales in the Great Lakes.

Finally, he “contacted the [whale watch] company, and they told us that their web site was farcical (not real) and for entertainment.”

Thanks to Andrew Mutch for the pointer in a message to the Web4Lib group.