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Comment by mysterydip | Hacker News Reader

As Guinness World Records is little more than an advertising agency, their reinstatement of his records doesn't hold much weight for me.

Edit: before downvoting, give this a read: https://www.vox.com/2015/3/6/8157639/guinness-world-record-b... or https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/20/552203402/epis...

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Does the NPR episode go into more allegations than them accepting payment for fasttracking new records? I read the vox article, and it seems to stop after mentioning the income they get from marketing and inventing new more niche records. AFAIK, the actual records they track are still well-defined and updated when new facts come to light.

Not sure on that episode specifically. If you have two hours (or want to skip around to the good parts), this youtube video goes in depth on the records of Tommy Tallarico and his videogame-related records: https://youtu.be/0twDETh6QaI?si=dgBVx1osuCsDpaaZ It seems that, originally, Guinness just took his word for it and printed it as fact, but to your point eventually they renamed his record so it was more accurate.

(warning:language)

Did you read TFA? These aren't Guinness World Records.

In their defense, the article says this:

> Despite these kinds of arguments, in 2020, the Guinness Book of World Records reinstated Mitchell's record scores, saying it was "defer[ing] to the original contemporaneous adjudication" rather than relying on Twin Galaxies' updated findings

That's what I was referring to, yes. I could see how it could be taken to be mistaken about the main records being talked about.

My mistake, and my apology then.. I shouldn't have assumed.

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