Hoaxes redux

[Hex]

Dcoetzee has had the good idea of restoring all the articles listed at Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia (T-H-L) as subpages there, with their complete editing history, for the purposes of study. The job's not done yet, but it's already making for interesting reading.

I actually happened across a new entry for the list yesterday, Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Avlor Landić de Hazelrof (T-H-L), which was very well-written and lasted for 11 months.

[Zoloft]

Dcoetzee has had the good idea of restoring all the articles listed at Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia (T-H-L) as subpages there, with their complete editing history, for the purposes of study. ...

Hope there's a lot of {NOINDEX} on that.

[Poetlister]

Presumably, the best hoaxes have been there longer than that but haven't yet been spotted.

Does something have to be an entire fake article to qualify as a hoax? What if it's just a section (something like adding to Oscar Wilde "Affair with W. B. Yeats")? I suppose it could even be one small point in a long article.

[EricBarbour]

It's pointless---there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of hoaxes they have yet to discover. That list is a joke.
Where are the thousands of bullshit articles that were AFDed since 2003, in the course of various editwars?
They don't even know how many AFDs have been processed to date. No one is keeping stats or doing analyses.
This is the only analysis I could find, covering one year.

And Coetzee is still a flake.

[Hex]

Hope there's a lot of {NOINDEX} on that.

Yes, the new {{hoax demo}} template sets it.

What if it's just a section (something like adding to Oscar Wilde "Affair with W. B. Yeats")? I suppose it could even be one small point in a long article.

The list includes both of those types.

[Hex]

That list is a joke.

Ah, you want Wikipedia:Complete list of every fake article and prank edit ever (T-H-L).

[SB_Johnny]

That list is a joke.

Ah, you want Wikipedia:Complete list of every fake article and prank edit ever (T-H-L).

Sure! Wikipedia is not paper, right?

[Hex]

Sure! Wikipedia is not paper, right?

Picture of completed list in printed form:

[Vigilant]

Sure! Wikipedia is not paper, right?

Picture of completed list in printed form:

Someone should run wikipedia as a print job onto toilet paper rolls.

[Black Kite]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Milk Studios (T-H-L)

11 years and 8 months. Winner!

[thekohser]

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Milk Studios (T-H-L)

11 years and 8 months. Winner!

So, is http://www.milkstudios.com fake?

[Kingsindian]

I can't read the deleted article, but it apparently claimed that this company has 12 studios in Sweden and three in the US. milkstudios.com only claims two in the US. So it's something else, if it does exist.

[Poetlister]

I can't read the deleted article, but it apparently claimed that this company has 12 studios in Sweden and three in the US. milkstudios.com only claims two in the US. So it's something else, if it does exist.

Even if it is supposed to be about the same Milk Studios, it's an article so seriously wrong that you have to call it a hoax.

[milowent]

the deleted article is now here (with all page history preserved): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia ... lk_Studios

as is typical of these long orphaned hoaxes, its hard to tell how many people were duped. it was getting a few hits a day on average.

https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?pr ... lk_Studios

[Carcharoth]

Very few edits as well (all minor fixes). It seems it had very little impact at all. The hoaxes that made it into print (or went viral on the internet) are more impressive. It can be hard to tell if it had links from elsewhere in Wikipedia, as those links may have been removed. Was it completely orphaned?

Hmm. Links from Brian Nobili (T-H-L), Microsoft Surface (T-H-L) and Carnivores Tour (T-H-L), all seemingly referring to the real thing (the company Greg pointed out). I wonder when those links were added to those articles. That will be how long this article was potentially misleading the readers of those articles.

For Brian Nobili: 10 November 2014.
For Microsoft Surface, the prize goes to Patto (T-C-L) (not really an active editor), who created the link on 21 February 2014.
For Carnivores Tours, the link was there from the start when the article was created on 13 July 2014 by Earthh (T-C-L) (an active editor, but hardly anyone bothers to check links so I can't really bring myself to ask why it wasn't checked).

So around 2 to 2.5 years of misleading links from those articles. I wonder when Milk Studios was formed and if they ever realised there was a hoax article taking their 'name'?

[Casliber]

...It seems it had very little impact at all. The hoaxes that made it into print (or went viral on the internet) are more impressive.

what about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

[Carcharoth]

...It seems it had very little impact at all. The hoaxes that made it into print (or went viral on the internet) are more impressive.

what about this one? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible

It would be impressive if that article got deleted. I suppose one day a real thing will get (incorrectly) 'identified' as a hoax and incorrectly deleted (due to a 'lack' of online sources). That would be 'impressive' as well. Equally impressive would be a hoax that it is not possible to prove is a hoax. Claimed use of offline sources that no-one is able to definitely access or prove don't exist. That would be very difficult, but just about possible.

[thekohser]

Milk Studios in Swedish is Mjölk Studios, which makes me consider this: http://www.studiomjolk.com/

[Kelly Martin]

All of this makes me wonder if any of Wikipedia's alleged hoaxes are actually not hoaxes, and thus the hoax is itself the hoax.

[Kingsindian]

Milk Studios in Swedish is Mjölk Studios, which makes me consider this: http://www.studiomjolk.com/

It says it was established in 2011, so probably not the same.

[Black Kite]

Neither the American Milk Studios (which is probably notable, actually) and the Studio Mjolk (which appears to be German, and might well be notable too) are anything related to the hoax article.

[Cedric]

All of this makes me wonder if any of Wikipedia's alleged hoaxes are actually not hoaxes, and thus the hoax is itself the hoax.

Like Barnum's fake Cardiff Giant, perhaps? Hmmm . . . .

[milowent]

milkstudios.com has been around since 2000 based on archive.org, but the old archives are unreadable (maybe java or frames or something?). by 2004 you can tell it was a site designed by "basedesign.com", which searches show created a site for the current milkstudios.com folks. this means the "Milk Studios" article was around since 2004 despite the existence of a real (different) Milk Studios the whole time?

https://web.archive.org/web/20040202041 ... ex_pc.html
Feb 2, 2004 capture I can see text: "© Milk Studios 2001 - Design & AD: http://www.basedesign.com"

http://www.basenow.net/tags/milk-studios/ - reference to Milk being a client of basedesign

"How do you make it from a petite studio in Brussels with not more than a few desks and a phone line to one of Belgium’s most reputed and cutting-edge creative studios with offices in New York and Geneva and clients ranging from The Olympic Museum in Lausanne to the Milk Studios? "


ETA: The reference to Älmhult must be included because the first IKEA store was opened there.


ETA2 : Here is ANOTHER milk studios. This one is in Sweden - milkstudios.se -- in 2010 it was some music place -
https://web.archive.org/web/20100811143 ... m_oss.html

more recently its been a blog - https://web.archive.org/web/20160305143 ... tudios.se/

[thekohser]

I think we can all agree that this was a fairly insignificant subject matter, and thus lasted so long because so few readers were encountering it.

My currently active hoax is not a whole article, but rather just a section of an article that receives about 600 to 700 page views per day. It's coming up on its one-year anniversary. It even includes a doctored illustration to help "prove" the hoax event exists.

[Poetlister]

I vaguely remember an article called something like "Hindu bishops", full of (fake) references. Someone was even told off for criticising it, because it was "well referenced" hence undoubtedly correct.