[WikiEN-l] Fictional articles?

[Geoff Burling]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Andrew Gray wrote:
>
> I'm wanting to expand the [[Nihilartikel]] article, by discussing the
> occurence of nihilartikels - deliberately fictional articles - in open
> publications like Wikipedia. We mention a couple, which were articles
> about famous hoaxes themselves presented as real ([[Uqbar]] and [[San
> Serriffe]]) before being fixed. And, of course, there was [[Jamie
> Kane]] recently. Things like [[Battle of Blenau]] Does anyone remember
> any cases?
>
> (Myself, I found three fictional Aztec gods. First reference here June
> 10, deleted mid August.)
>
> However, what I'm looking for are cases of purely false information,
> not particularly intended for humorous effect or linked to popular
> culture - which if memory serves do get caught and hauled onto VfD
> every now and again. This is a developing role of the nihilartikel -
> rather than being inserted "from high", they get added from below,
> almost as part of a [[breaching experiment]] ("let's see if this
> lasts")
>
For some reason, Ethiopian topics seem to attract more than its
share -- or maybe it's because I've been focussing my attention there
lately. (But I don't remember seeing a similar proportion of
fictional articles related to Ancient Egypt.)

And the type of fictional material that gets added isn't necessarily
a nihilartikel -- although that is one form. Two other ways that I've
seen are:

* Fictional material into articles on otherwise real subjects. The
Date & Year pages seem to be a good example of this, where a contributor
might add an event that seems true to all but an expert. (If you were
to see an edit to [[100 BC]] that read "Construction completed on
the Aqua Fabia", would you know at a glance whether this was true or
false?) I had a similar problem with an article about the Falls of
the Blue Nile, where someone had stated that these falls had been
covered by a lake created by a modern dam; it took me months to find
a source that proved the falls are not beneath several feet of water.
(This was from a Tour guide to Ethiopia; & with my luck, I probably
misread that section.)

* Real subject, content entirely fictional. I encountered this problem
with [[Shilavo]]: an anon editor added a lengthy, fairly detailed
article about how this had grown into a modern Ethiopian city. Someone
(I don't remember at the moment) marked it for Cleanup. I was suspicious
about the article, but only after a determined search on Google did I
finally learn that the real Shilavo was a village of about 700 people
in the middle of the Ogaden, & which is important only because it
is the home of the only airport (unpaved) in the region.

And then there is the case of what ought to be a nihilartikel -- but
is actually true. Like Wanker's Corner, Oregon, an otherwise
unremarkable intersection SW of Lake Oswego. When I wrote that article,
my primary concern was to prove that it *did* exist; so I located &
mentioned every bit of evidence for its existence. (I ought to drive
down there & take a picture of the feed store that displays the name
proudly.) Sadly, the name came into use after the US government
consolidated the countless tiny post offices into a more centralized
system. (Sorry, Stan -- any Wanker's Corner cancels you might find
would all be forgeries.)

My problem with a lot of these cases for me is that unless the fiction
is so obvious that it sets off my BS detector, I have to put it on
my list of things to do. After all, there is a lot of information of
WP that has been drawn from a faulty memory, & only upon review &
continuing research is the good-faith error found & fixed. That is
perhaps the most important reason why I try to provide sources for
everything I can in my recent edits -- & that some of the sources I
have for Ethiopian history are suspicious, but they are all I have
to work with.

Geoff