marktangotango extrapolated this trope to assuming that Wolfram doesn't cite the particular authors in question without bothering to check, perhaps because he assumes (incorrectly) that Wolfram never gives credit to others at all.

Maybe assuming you can extrapolate a common criticism of a person in any way that occurs to you, and then presenting the extrapolations as fact isn't "lying," but whatever it is, it shouldn't have a very nice name.

It's not a lie, if it is the result of ignorance.

I'm not even sure what "deliberate ignorance" means in this context: he knowingly doesn't know if Wolfram mentioned this, and guessing he probably did, chooses to say he didn't?

If I claimed that the Lord of the Rings trilogy does not contain a character named "Frodo," would you call that a deliberate lie or a simple mistake?

I'd call it neither.

You'd be wrong, but maybe you were confusing the name, or maybe the book, or maybe it's spelt differently in a different language. Maybe you read it long ago and forgot. Maybe you read a printing done by a little known cult that censored all referenced to hobbits. I have no idea why, but there are an infinite field of possibilities and only some require bad faith.

Sure. But I think it is inadvisable to claim to know the reasons or motive behind the comment, and doubly so to claim they are acting in bad faith.

I don't have to worship a person to think it's inappropriate to use lies to discredit that person. In fact, the more worthy a person is of being discredited, the more important (and elementary) it is to discredit that person using true statements.

Mistakes happen.

In this discussion, the mistake was corrected in about an hour and included citations.

You can argue the morality of it, but it gets results.

Corrections and even downvotes are fine. Accusing someone of acting in bad faith is completely different.

I believe (hope?) none of my comments in this thread could be regarded has hateful (errantly or otherwise).