Wikipedia talk:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia

Michel Lunarca and the invention of the croque-monsieur

Hi, I don't know if this merits inclusion somewhere (perhaps as a stand alone section :-) ). Michel Lunarca existed on enwiki for less than a day, after Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michel Lunarca. However, the origin of the hoax dates back 13 years, apparently originated on French Wikipedia, spread across many reliable sources, and was only deleted on frwiki after our AfD and some articles about the hoax[1][2][3].

Sources which fell for it include Books in French, Portuguese, German and Polish (I think?), and countless Google News hits[4] from around the world.

While it didn't last long here, it's thank to enwiki (and the hoaxer who overplayed their hand) that it finally came to light. Fram (talk) 17:15, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, but if it lasted less than a day, it probably doesn't belong here. Gawaon (talk) 21:24, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Gawaon and Fram: I disagree, this does belong on the page. What's important is the impact/relevance/notability of a hoax, not how long it lasted. While many short-lived hoaxes don't warrant inclusion in the list (and we should keep that rule, because anything else would encourage the creation of hoax articles), some short-lived hoaxes become notable. This here is one of them. Renerpho (talk) 02:22, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I have no strong preference one way or the other so I don't think I'll object if it's actually added. Gawaon (talk) 08:32, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

ER

The merge tag on the page messes with the merge categories.

Line 1: Line 1:
{{pp-protected|reason=[[Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia]]|small=yes}} {{pp-protected|reason=[[Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia]]|small=yes}}
{{hoax documentation}} {{hoax documentation}}
{{hoax|date=February 2019}}
{{merge to|Oriente, San Juan, Puerto Rico|date=May 2018}}
'''Medio Oriente''' is one of the seven boroughs of [[San Juan, Puerto Rico]].<ref>[https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-3-53-eng.pdf Puerto Rico 2000: Population and Housing Unit Counts]</ref>{{failed verification|date=August 2016}} '''Medio Oriente''' is one of the seven boroughs of [[San Juan, Puerto Rico]].<ref>[https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2000/phc-3-53-eng.pdf Puerto Rico 2000: Population and Housing Unit Counts]</ref>{{failed verification|date=August 2016}}

FaviFake (talk) 19:46, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done! CoconutOctopus talk 13:43, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Émile Dufresne

Apparent hoax article, currently up for WP:PROD, about a French inventor who supposedly invented an early touchscreen. Created at 03:50, 28 February 2025 (UTC), and a statement about this person is cited at [1]. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 08:49, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was deleted as apparent LLM content, unreviewed. @LaundryPizza03: When was the article created? That a new article is picked up by an external reference seems a bit unusual (at the very least it's bad timing), so I wonder if that reference and the AI both got this from the same place. Renerpho (talk) 10:04, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said, February 28. The external website is dated April 15, and there are no Wayback Machine snapshots predating it. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 10:13, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@LaundryPizza03: Do you know who wrote it? —Fortuna, imperatrix 14:59, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thanks -- I missed that earlier (I think I mistook it as part of your signature when reading the comment). Looks like a probable hoax to me, possibly with some LLM hallucination thrown into the mix. I hope it doesn't spread from that random Reshine Display article. Renerpho (talk) 15:40, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The user FuntMasterGames (talk · contribs). The external webpage was presumably written by an employee of the company named "Wendy", no last name given. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 16:37, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@LaundryPizza03: Thanks. I wonder what their connection was with TheHistorian1337; see the latter's sandbox. —Fortuna, imperatrix 17:06, 1 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the article was created 10 minutes after this, and it was FuntMasterGames who blanked TheHistorian1337's sandbox draft a few hours later; Special:Diff/1278127800. TheHistorian1337 seems to be a single-purpose account, having been created on 28 February 2025 and not been used anywhere else than in the sandbox. Renerpho (talk) 04:15, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have just reverted a couple more mentions of Emil Dufresne that had been added by the same user: Special:Diff/1278122112 at Emil (given name) from 2 March; Special:Diff/1278126508 at Aix-en-Provence from 28 February; Special:Diff/1278127351 at List of people from Lyon from 28 February; and Special:Diff/1278043006 at Resistive touchscreen from 28 February, alongside two of the citations that were used in the now deleted article. Among the few surviving mentions of an Émile Dufresne on Wikipedia are Adrien Meunier and Papineau (electoral district). That Émile Dufresne was a candidate at the 1953 Canadian federal election, who I believe was a real person. Renerpho (talk) 04:32, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "What Is A Resistive Touchscreen Display And How Does It Work? - Reshine Display". www.reshine-display.com. Retrieved 1 December 2025.

Addition of Suoreen

Suoreen seems to be a pretty clear-cut hoax (archived version here). The article claims the artist had a charted hit single in multiple countries which was co-written by Sia, but no results for this song come up on Google, AllMusic, or Discogs. The footnotes in the article are also obviously falsified and point to other, irrelevant sources (one is actually about Katy Perry). Shout-out to @Here2rewrite:. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 02:45, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Here2rewrite and TenPoundHammer: I agree; good find. The website in the infobox has never been registered. The name and date of birth might belong to a real person, which could make this a privacy issue, but I see no indication that the artist exists. The user who created it has three edits, all from 10 December 2015 (creating their user page and user talk page, and this), which isn't a good sign either. Renerpho (talk) 04:26, 17 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
allikas: Https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia