A valid concern is that everybody copies the same information. This invariably leads to cases where errors in Wikipedia are repeated in so many places that people everywhere think they are fact.
One recent example was that everyone from Google to the BBC now believes that an "Alan MacMasters" invented the electric toaster. In fact, this was a hoax perpetrated on Wikipedia 10 years ago:
The archive of the article they point to seems much longer and detailed than the version linked to by the Wiipedians discussing removing it.
Is there any way to see the full history of deleted articles? Maybe one of those completionist mirrors?
There's lots of "comedy edits" that only really exist for long enough to take a screenshot (sometimes not even that long as the screenshot can be easily faked).
Comments
A valid concern is that everybody copies the same information. This invariably leads to cases where errors in Wikipedia are repeated in so many places that people everywhere think they are fact.
One recent example was that everyone from Google to the BBC now believes that an "Alan MacMasters" invented the electric toaster. In fact, this was a hoax perpetrated on Wikipedia 10 years ago:
https://wikipediocracy.com/2022/08/11/wikipedias-credibility...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2...
More examples here:
https://www.theregister.com/2017/01/16/wikipedia_16_birthday...
The archive of the article they point to seems much longer and detailed than the version linked to by the Wiipedians discussing removing it.
Is there any way to see the full history of deleted articles? Maybe one of those completionist mirrors?
There's lots of "comedy edits" that only really exist for long enough to take a screenshot (sometimes not even that long as the screenshot can be easily faked).
Usually, longstanding hoax articles are moved to a new location where they are clearly identfied as hoaxes. Example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...
This retains the editor history but hasn't happened in this case (yet; I'll ask for it to be done).
Meanwhile, some older versions of the article can be seen here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20151128131452/https://en.wikipe...
There you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wi...
This has the entire edit history, going back to 2013:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:List_of...
Thank you