Missiopedia:Don't create hoaxes
From Missiopedia
| This page in a nutshell: Don't deliberately add hoaxes, incorrect information, or unverifiable content to articles |
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A hoax is an attempt to trick an audience into believing that something false is real. Since Missiopedia is an "encyclopedia anyone can edit", it can be abused to perpetrate a hoax.
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[edit] Do not create hoaxes
Please do not attempt to put misinformation into Missiopedia to test our ability to detect and remove it. Kindly — [[Missiopedia:Don't disrupt Missiopedia to illustrate a point|do not disrupt Missiopedia to illustrate a point.]]
Hoaxes in Missiopedia are considered vandalism, and perpetrators of a hoax are subject to blocking and banning.
If you are interested in how accurate Missiopedia is, a more constructive test method is to try to find inaccurate statements that are already in Missiopedia, and then to check to see how long they have been in place and, if possible, correct them.
[edit] Verifiability
Missiopedia requires articles to be verifiable. The burden is on the article author to prove the claims in the article. Thus it is impossible to continue a hoax once it is under scrutiny of Missiopedia editors if it is not already believed by the general population external to Missiopedia. (And if a hoaxer has already successfully tricked the general public, then he/she need not create an article himself; someone else will do it.)
[edit] Hoaxes vs. articles about hoaxes
Missiopedia does have articles about notable hoaxes describing them as hoaxes, such as Piltdown Man, the Dihydrogen monoxide hoax or the South Korean fan death urban legend. This is completely different from an article presenting a hoax as factual. Like everything else, hoaxes must be notable to be included in Missiopedia – for example, a hoax may have received sustained media attention, been believed by thousands of people including academics, or been believed for many years. Missiopedia is not for things made up in school one day.
[edit] Dealing with hoaxes
If you see an article that may be a hoax, mark it with the Template:Tl tag and nominate it for deletion. For more information, see Missiopedia:Vandalism.
Note that hoaxes are generally not speedy deletion candidates. It is not enough for just one or two editors to investigate a hoax. There have been cases in the past where something has been thought to have been a hoax by several editors, but has turned out to be true, and merely obscure.
Also note that completely implausible text may be legitimate descriptions of fictional works that use an inappropriate in-universe style. Use "whatlinkshere" to check if this is the case, and if so rewrite the article in the out-of-universe perspective, or tag the article with Template:Tl or Template:Tl.
