Wikipedia talk:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/The Lying Student

This is an archive of the discussion of The Lying Student, a hoax article that was deleted. It has been copied here solely for the purpose of documenting hoaxes on Wikipedia, in order to improve our detection and understanding of them. If you would like to actually make a comment on this page or the discussion you see below, please go to Wikipedia talk:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia.

Deletion log

A fact from List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/The Lying Student appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 February 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that The Lying Student was written in 1914, but not published until most of the manuscript was rediscovered in 1981?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/February.

Wikipedia

Hoax?

So I've never done this before and I'm not sure if I'm following the right procedure, but I'm pretty sure this article is a hoax.

If you Google the poem title, all that comes up is this article, or direct quotations from this article.
I looked up the 4 cited sources and one of them (Karel Čapek: Life and Work) has a Google Books excerpt available. I checked the cited pages, 150-156, and they're completely unrelated.
The Wiki article was written entirely by one user, and the page hasn't been edited for content since then--just formatting or categorization edits.
Most importantly, that user made an initial draft of the article in which he appears to be falsifying and inventing details, working from an article about a different, Ukranian poem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.54.104.131 (talk) 02:01, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's a hoax, undoubtedly. I believe that the "author", Jára Svěrák is a combination of the names of Zdeněk Svěrák and a famous fictional character of the Czech culture, Jára Cimrman (who was by the way co-created by Svěrák). Other contributions by the creator need to be checked, as the hoax was written and referenced in a persuasive way - in 2015 it found a way to the main page through the "Did you know" section. The Czech phrase "Ležící studenta" is gramatically incorrect. Good catch 99.54.104.131. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 09:41, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, but this was actually featured on the main page. It can't find its way to the main page unless it is notable, so that's a problem. Kiwifist (talk) 19:02, 23 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Miyagawa, Ktr101, and FunkyCanute: please note that this page, which you accepted in good faith at Template:Did you know nominations/The Lying Student, has now been solidly discredited. I don't know how realistic it is to expect DYK reviewers to look into the credibility of citations claimed from printed sources. – Fayenatic London 12:01, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, but since it has now been identified as a hoax, the article should be deleted. Miyagawa (talk) 17:12, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's a rather elaborate hoax. It makes me wonder what the purpose of it was. I also wonder how many other such hoaxes are in Wikipedia, and how we go about detecting them. Finally, who has blown the whistle, and why now? FunkyCanute (talk) 13:22, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't easy to detect hoaxes written and referenced in a persuasive way, such as this one. I've checked most of new Czech related articles for many years and I'm pretty sure I would be able to detect this one but I'm not as active as I used to be. I would say that this was revealed by accident. I've detected some hoaxes in the past and I've seen far more detected by others. I would say that Wikipedia hosts hundreds of hoaxes, but it's just my opinion. Anyone can edit here with little or no responsibility/accountability, don't forget. --Vejvančický (talk / contribs) 18:16, 27 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]