
List of Hoaxes on Wikipedia - 1_over_n
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia
======
nemo1618
I wonder if any of these are actually not hoaxes, but simply unverifiable or
insufficiently notable. Quite a few of the hoax articles are bands, for
example; isn't it more likely that they were real, and only played a show or
two in some backwater town, rather than being invented whole-cloth? Maybe
someday there will be a "List of Wikipedia articles that were considered
hoaxes but were actually true."

This one is pretty hilarious though:

"Fictitious claim that the founder of Orange Julius invented auto-cleaning
spectacles, an inflatable shrimp trap, and a portable pigeon-bathing unit.
Dairy Queen, which now owns Orange Julius, was fooled; the company based an
entire ad campaign around the hoax and produced this video[1] about Julius
Freed's supposed inventions."

[1]
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj1Ts1X6Vt0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj1Ts1X6Vt0)

And this one seems to explain the origins of a lot of hoax articles:

"After being repeated tens of times, sometimes by journalists and academics,
the hoax was identified by EJ Dickson, one of its authors, turned journalist,
who had written it as a joke with a friend while 'stoned'."

~~~
rebuilder
That video does not seem like the work of someone who was fooled.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Indeed; looks very much like they’re leaning into the hoax.

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dmix
This one is interesting considering it almost became a 'featured article':

> Bicholim conflict

> Fictitious war between the Portuguese rulers of Goa and the Maratha Empire
> which supposedly took place from mid-1640 to early 1641. It was assessed as
> a good article in September 2007, but failed a featured article nomination
> the next month as page numbers were not provided for references. ShelfSkewed
> (talk · contribs) investigated these references in 2012 and found that the
> main works cited do not actually exist. One of the longest and most
> elaborate hoax articles on Wikipedia. Probably the only to have been
> assessed a good article.

------
aazaa
> One way to identify hoax articles included examining the article structure
> and content, its mentions in other articles on Wikipedia (i.e.,
> embeddedness), and features of the editor who created the page.
> Specifically, hoax articles are likely to be longer than a legitimate
> article, less likely to have links to other Wikipedia articles, references,
> images, or other "wiki-like" markup, less likely to be mentioned in other
> Wikipedia articles before its creation, and more likely to be created by a
> new account with few to no other edits.

Wikipedia benefits from this kind of metadata. Earlier ages didn't.

The large number of articles, some of them evading detection for many years,
makes you wonder about the hoaxes that may have been perpetrated in earlier
times, but are now accepted as fact.

~~~
account73466
What if our entire history is a hoax + confirmation bias? Sounds crazy but
some sources claim they know what some guy said to another guy a few thousands
years ago - isn't that crazy? You could make some part of it in the 17th
century and no one would notice as long as it sounds pretty and does not
contradict previously made stories.

~~~
krapp
We have documentary and archaeological sources to corroborate our model of the
historical record, and scientific methods to determine the age and
authenticity of those sources to a reasonable degree. While hoaxes do exist,
they tend to be discovered in time, and it is unlikely that the entire
historical record, including all physical artifacts, are hoaxes or frauds. It
isn't the case that anything that "sounds pretty and does not contradict
previously made stories" is automatically assumed to be correct - the various
sciences and disciplines that make up historical research are not that naive,
nor do they operate entirely on hearsay and speculation.

~~~
account73466
If you worked in academia, you know how the review process is happening. Even
if you deal with exact science papers, most of them are misleading in some way
(fortunately, you can show it since it is exact science). History is full of
politics and it is pretty costly to go against it. In practice, when you have
a story accepted as fact, you job is to put a little peace to supplement it.
If you deviate too far, you will be destroyed by the ones whose current job is
also add a little peace. For instance, there is a huge political aspect to who
did what first and where.

~~~
krapp
There's still a big difference between "politics sometimes affects academia"
and "everything we know is a lie."

~~~
account73466
Obviously not everything but more than one would think is acceptable. Standing
on the shoulders of giants sometimes has its cons.

~~~
krapp
How do you know, though?

You seem to be using generalities to talk around specifics, what specifically
are you referring to, and what evidence do you have?

~~~
account73466
If I would talk about specifics, you could supplement your sentence "what
evidence do you have" with "regarding X" but since I don't talk about
specifics, I don't need to.

~~~
Retric
If something is generally true then their must exist many specific cases of it
being true. Therefore it’s reasonable to require people making general
arguments to provide at least one specific example. Because if they can’t that
directly invalidates their argument.

~~~
account73466
>> Because if they can’t that directly invalidates their argument.

No, it does not since this is not how logic and science work. You just stay
with a claim that is missing a support but it does not mean that the claim is
false.

>> Therefore it’s reasonable to require people making general arguments to
provide at least one specific example.

Alright. Please read
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy) and
let me know what is the main thing you are uncomfortable with (if any). If
there is a match, then I will provide another example.

~~~
Retric
You’re misinterpreting what I said.

Invalidating an argument does not mean the conclusion is always false.
Otherwise you could prove any theorem A by finding a single contradiction
invalidating a poof of !A.

PS: Sorry, I can’t help myself... 1 + 1 = 5 therefore P != NP. Wait 1 + 1 = 2
therefore P = NP. Sadly that’s not going to fly.

------
bitwize
This reminds me of the time someone tried to convince the fan community for
_Inspector Gadget_ of the existence of an entire _Gadget_ animated series that
never aired in America that centered around a romantic relationship between
Gadget and another character of her own creation. She went to great lengths to
forge evidence of the obscure cartoon's existence, including creating screen
shots in Photoshop, inventing fictitious voice actors with fictitious résumés
involving voice work on _other_ fictitious shows, and creating a large number
of sockpuppet accounts supposedly of people who had seen or were fans of the
fictitious show. Wikipedia and IMDB had listings for the series, before the
hoax was exposed.

Oddly enough the "Gadget hoax" once had its own Wikipedia article, but that
was deleted long ago, presumably for non-notability.

------
isostatic
First hoax in the list, "Fictitious biography about a Belgian painter".

It was in place for 13 years, 4 months

But the kicker?

> Speedy deleted as "G3: Blatant hoax"

If that's speedy, what's slow!?

~~~
vilhelm_s
"speedy deletion" is a kind of article deletion, where the wikipedia admin can
skip the discussion/consensus stage. The speediness refers to the time between
when the deletion nomination is submitted and the article is deleted.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion))

~~~
paulddraper
Yes, wouldn't want to waste any time; who knows how much harm it could have.

------
boznz
Back in the early 80's I regularly said I was an airline pilot or worked at
NASA to impress girls in bars. My gran went to her grave proudly thinking I'd
been up to space on a secret mission, and there are still a few people out in
the world who will swear they met a real double-agent or the guy who designed
the lotus esprit..

Harmless fun, but not really possible to get away with these days..

Damn you Google!

~~~
hutzlibu
So .. it is possible to google the names of double agents now? I mean, you can
google the designer of the lotus esprit, but secret missions are still secret
missions, so you can still try to be a con artist.

------
fenwick67
The scariest one on here is the article on "Bine", a "Fictional ancient
Akkadian demon", not just because it was up for over 12 years but it was
republished somewhere else.

> Despite having no sources, the hoax was included in Theresa Bane's
> Encyclopedia of Demons in World Religions and Cultures, published by
> McFarland & Company in 2012.

~~~
dmix
This one was up for 7yrs:

> Chen Fang

> A Wikipedian noticed in November 2012 that The Harvard Guide to Using
> Sources said that "an Expos student who was writing a paper about the
> limitations of Wikipedia posted a fictional entry for himself, stating that
> he was the mayor of a small town in China. Four years later, if you type in
> his name, or if you do a subject search on Wikipedia for mayors of towns in
> China, you will still find this fictional entry." No longer.

------
ebg13
Most of these look exceptionally boring. If you want the good stuff in the
wikivandalism genre, you want Bad Jokes And Other Deleted Nonsense:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Silly_Things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Silly_Things)

~~~
teddyh
There’s an entire wiki dedicated to nonsense:

[https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Main_Page](https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/Main_Page)

------
toby-
The length of time the "Tim Verfaillie" hoax stood unchallenged impressive -
over 13 years.

The article's author has few contributions, and hasn't been active since 2006
(on the English Wikipedia, at least):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bruges](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Bruges)

I wonder how many other hoax articles are out there, having existed for
decades without proper verification or review.

------
Waterluvian
My favorite hoaxes are ones that totally fool some entity that really should
know better like the Time Magazine Marblecake hoax. It was fun reading the
mini articles on each listed person, stretching a rationale for why they're on
the list. [https://techcrunch.com/2009/04/27/time-magazine-throws-up-
it...](https://techcrunch.com/2009/04/27/time-magazine-throws-up-its-hands-as-
it-gets-pwned-by-4chan/)

------
acqq
I remember finding some physical constant in a Wikipedia article with more
decimals than what I knew about. I've verified that and have found that these
decimals were bogus, and existed there in the article for quite a while (e.g.
two years).

I've never tried to right that wrong, believing it would take a lot of my
energy.

Don't believe Wikipedia blindly, even for the physical constants.

~~~
hcs
I know this may have been a long time ago, and you decided it wasn't worth the
effort making and defending the edit, but making a mention of your references
on the talk page for the article could bring the error to the attention of
other editors.

~~~
acqq
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AAngstrom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AAngstrom)

"1907 IAU definition of the Angstrom: Was it 6438.4696, or was it 6438.46963
(???)

I was wondering why I was coming up with 1553164.117 wavelengths of the
cadmium red-line per 10^10 angstroms (the so-called "Cadmium meter", per the
1907 IAU definition given as 6438.46963), while virtually all internet
searches were coming up with "1553164.13".

Later, _I managed to trace a change in the article from 6438.4696 to
6438.46963 in an unsourced one-character edit by 146.115.127.198, all the way
back to 2008_.

I suspect that _6438.4696_ (which yields 1553164.12459 per 10^10 (1907)
angstroms) _is correct (based on the printed publications which I have come
across)_ , and _the error has since propagated to several other websites that
have used Wikipedia as a reference._ Should this ten-year-old edit be
reverted, or not? DWIII (talk) 14:42, 3 September 2018 (UTC)"

After reading that, to find some who have since 2008 wrongly used that bogus
constant (even in some books), search for:

"6438.46963"

------
jonstewart
I want to live in the alternate universe where Borges and Umberto Eco are
still alive and use this phenomenon as inspiration.

------
rebuilder
I went in looking for things I thought were real - the Spanish tickler is a
hoax?

~~~
JadeNB
As a mathematician, I admire the mindset of someone who uses a list of
falsehoods to test his or her beliefs.

------
OJFord
Most of them are bizarre in both subject matter and specificity (I suppose
necessarily in order to get away with it) - I just don't understand the
motivation.

------
teh_infallible
Whoever invented “Synchronized Football” deserves some kind of prize.

------
jonyt
What about this fake Nazi death camp, apparently a hoax by Polish
nationalists?

[https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-
fa...](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-fake-nazi-
death-camp-wikipedia-s-longest-hoax-exposed-1.7942233)

~~~
akovaski
What about it? It's the first entry under "Hoax statements in articles".

------
peteradio
I'm so proud, my younger brother is the creator one of these when he was in
middle school.

~~~
scubbo
Sorry to be a buzzkill, but are you really proud of someone for willfully
misleading people and undermining the credibility for one of the greatest
collections of human knowledge ever amassed?

I get that there's a certain thrill to "getting one over" on a large
establishment; but your brother's actions, while ultimately inconsequential,
are nothing to be proud of. Part of a good prank is that it does no harm.

~~~
TheGallopedHigh
Lighten up. Humor has its place. Are you not sure that these actions might
serve the public to be more critical of what they read online, thereby doing
them a great service?

------
galaxyLogic
SEEN: [https://www.dw.com/en/putin-proposes-to-replace-wikipedia-
wi...](https://www.dw.com/en/putin-proposes-to-replace-wikipedia-with-
reliable-russian-version/a-51127214)

------
mlthoughts2018
This is really terrifying. Imagine what governments and elites could do across
generations if they can popularize belief & debate over entrenched hoax
articles that shape debate over geopolitics.

~~~
Karunamon
In this case I wouldn't worry too much. If you look through those hoax
articles, you'll notice that almost all of them barely qualify as stubs (very
short) and have few-to-no citations or incoming links. The fact that they
survived so long is probably due to the fact Wikipedia is huge and simply
nobody noticed them. What good is propaganda if unseen?

~~~
dontbenebby
You can look up the traffic to a page:

[http://stats.grok.se/](http://stats.grok.se/)

It'd be interesting to write a crawler to look for "stubbish" articles then
checks if they're widely read, then flags a human if so.

------
jdavis703
One of the hoaxes is about a "fake" mythical demon. At what point is mythology
or a religion no longer considered a hoax?

~~~
pgcj_poster
Yeah, it makes no sense. I wrote an article about the Shakespeare character
"Hank" who saved Hamlet's life. It got deleted because Hank "isn't a real
character." I pointed out that Hamlet "isn't real" either, but I just got IP
banned. This is why Trump won.

~~~
hutzlibu
You know, you would have more credibility, if you would link to that
discussion, so other people know, it really happened the way you say it did ..

~~~
Sniffnoy
You, uh, might want to learn to recognize irony a bit better.

(To make it absolutely explicit: pgcj_poster is not relating a story that
actually happened. They're taking on a fictional persona -- and relating a
fictional story that happened to this fictional persona -- and making a
facetious point as that persona in order to demonstrate that jdavis703's point
makes no sense, by making an argument which is analogous but obviously
ridiculous.)

~~~
hutzlibu
Thats a relief ...

