{"id":15002,"date":"2014-05-15T18:31:01","date_gmt":"2014-05-15T23:31:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/?p=15002"},"modified":"2021-11-02T06:24:01","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T11:24:01","slug":"dubious-references","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.howderfamily.com\/blog\/dubious-references\/","title":{"rendered":"Dubious References"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I don’t think of Twelve Mile Circle as a definitive source. I do my best to produce an acceptable level of accuracy. Admittedly, I’m not an authority on most geo-oddities even when I’ve been fortunate enough to visit them on the ground. It amuses me to find instances of Wikipedia citing 12MC as a footnoted reference, given my limitations. But don’t get me wrong, it’s flattering. I hope I can live up to those expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn’t comb through Wikipedia on some kind of bizarre ego trip. Rather, I obsess over reader statistics pretty intensely, a personal quirk known well to longtime members of the Twelve Mile Circle audience. My interests stem from a geographic perspective mostly — the exotic places where 12MC visitors live and travel — and I also notice referral paths in the course of those examinations. This website receives a light and steady drip of visitors from Wikipedia, maybe one or two per day.  Each one leaves a digital fingerprint on my access logs. So I satisfied my curiosity today by examining more than six years worth Wikipedia referrals captured by Google Analytics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Shortest International Bridge<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"IMG40D_0811-1.<\/a>
NOT the Shortest International Bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I attempted to debunk the myth of the Shortest International Bridge<\/a> allegedly extending between Zavikon and Little Zavikon Islands in the St. Lawrence River. It is not. Wikipedia cites my page several times, discussing Zavikon Island<\/a>, the Thousand Islands<\/a>, and even a Ukranian version<\/a> on that theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That pleased me because this erroneous tale has self-perpetuated throughout the Intertubes. Go ahead and search on shortest international bridge<\/a> if you like, and see what turns up. Essentially it’s the two Wikipedia pages trying to hold steady against a torrent of misinformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oddly enough, I received several days of uncharacteristic visitor traffic from Hungary a few weeks ago. Hungarians even outnumbered readers from the United Kingdom for a brief moment. I found that rather disconcerting because 12MC has a very strong and loyal following in the UK. So I traced the triggering event back to its source and discovered the reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notice the photograph of the supposed shortest bridge, above. Look closely and one will see a Canadian flag on the left, a US flag on the right, and a HUNGARIAN<\/em> flag in the middle. A Hungarian website<\/a> featured this. The site explained that a Hungarian-born Canadian purchased the islands, and of course repeated the false claim about the shortest bridge. Then a reader left a comment poking a hole in the claim and cited 12MC. I thought that was pretty cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Antipodes Islands<\/h2>\n\n\n\n