This article has not yet been rated on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Skepticism B‑class Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Chemicals B‑class Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Chemicals, a daughter project of WikiProject Chemistry, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of chemicals. To participate, help improve this article or visit the project page for details on the project.ChemicalsWikipedia:WikiProject ChemicalsTemplate:WikiProject Chemicalschemicals B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Sociology B‑class Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Sociology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of sociology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SociologyWikipedia:WikiProject SociologyTemplate:WikiProject Sociologysociology B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Medicine B‑class Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine, which recommends that medicine-related articles follow the Manual of Style for medicine-related articles and that biomedical information in any article use high-quality medical sources. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine.MedicineWikipedia:WikiProject MedicineTemplate:WikiProject Medicinemedicine B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Environment B‑class This environment-related article is part of the WikiProject Environment to improve Wikipedia's coverage of the environment. The aim is to write neutral and well-referenced articles on environment-related topics, as well as to ensure that environment articles are properly categorized. Read Wikipedia:Contributing FAQ and leave any messages at the project talk page.EnvironmentWikipedia:WikiProject EnvironmentTemplate:WikiProject EnvironmentEnvironment B This article has been rated as B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. ??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

This page has archives. Sections older than 31 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

Does this link have the original text? [1] If so, it's probably worth copying to wikisource. Lefty 19:30, 2005 May 6 (UTC)

I authored / edited the original web page referenced above (formerly hosted at circus.com). The idea started at UCSC, and Eric Lechner created a warning sheet designed to be posted on water coolers. I added to it and changed it around, creating a political cause, and posting on the web for the first time in 1994. It was first offically published in print by Analog Magazine. Nathan Zohner later drew media attention to it by using it as the basis for his science exeriment, and the folks at dhmo.org ran with the idea further.

The original Coalition page included my home address along with a request to send an SASE for more information. I received many inquiries via post and email, along with a surprising number of letters from teachers who had asked their students to write reaction papers to it. A few of these are still around on the net: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/dhmofoot.htm

-Craig Jackson, President of the Coalition to ban DHMO

Could you edit the article to reflect this? - DavidWBrooks 5 July 2005 15:32 (UTC)

Uh, what? That's really all I have to say, the current title with "petition" instead of hoax makes no sense to me. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:13, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why can ANY pages be moved without notice. There does not even seem to be an easily accessible log of page moves. The petition was just one part of the hoax. Restore earlier title, please. --JimWae (talk) 21:40, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if it was abrupt. I just don't think it was meant as a hoax. Rather, it was a form of parody science. In a hoax, you really want to fool people. Like crop circles or Piltdown man. This was more social commentary.

But the (not so) easily accessible log of page moves is here (scroll down to see it). --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:58, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, the new title is worse. The original "Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide" page [2] wasn't a petition, and neither were most of the incidents listed under "Public efforts involving DHMO". Dcxf (talk) 22:32, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All right, how about dihydrogen monoxide ban parody? That's it for this year. If you all think it's more of a hoax than a parody or social comment, get an admin to move it back.

But I think the crop circles article is more important than this one. Anybody would think (before I started correcting it) that scientist (still!) are mystified by the "phenomenon" even 20 years after Doug Bower and Dave Chorley admitted the hoax and explained how they did it. --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:44, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What the frick are you doing, moving pages around without a discussion? The move should absolutely be undone - you've left a baffling trail of multi-redirects ... - DavidWBrooks (talk) 22:45, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's pretty messed up. I'm going to move it back, it should not be moved again without a consensus as nobody appears to agree with the bizzare, sudden, multiple renames. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:50, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, stop already. While I don't agree that either page title was "bizarre", I did tell User:Materialscientist on my user talk page that I'm done moving it. Usually moving an article has not been a big deal. The last few moves I made didn't seem to require discussion first; I guess this one did, though.

1. moved Christmas Every Day to Christmas Every Day (movie)
2. moved Anti-LGBT slogans to Anti-LGBT rhetoric ‎ (more than just slogans)
3. moved Nephology to Cloud formation and climate change ‎ (The term "nephology" is rarely used, and much of the article is about climate change)

I am to get along by going along. You'll have no more undiscussed moves from me here, okay? --Uncle Ed (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to discuss every single page move, and if nobody objects to it WP:SILENCE applies. However, right after you did the page move I opened a discussion about it as I did not agree with the move. Before that discussion had progressed much you moved it again. That, in my opinion, is when it became a problem. Siice you have agreed not to do so again it's not a problem anymore, and of course we can discuss any proposed new name you think is apt, but for now it should stay here unless a consensus for a different title becomes apparent. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:25, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. After the discussion was opened my attempt to "solve" the problem just made it worse. My bad. Lesson learned. --Uncle Ed (talk) 23:38, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More importantly, you didn't check the Talk archives to see that the point of whether to call this article a "hoax" or "parody" or whatever has been discussed quite alot, without consensus. So it had already been established that a move was not supported; ergo, if you wanted to make the move you should have started a discussion first. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:00, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, David. I've included a note near the top of the page indicating that it was discussed without consensus and suggesting a glance at the archives. --Uncle Ed (talk) 18:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think the title should just be plain old Dihydrogen monoxide, since that term is used only in relation to this hoax/parody, and the simplicity would avoid these kind of debates. But I've never been able to get anybody else to agree.

Consensus-building is a really annoying process when people refuse to agree with me! - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:34, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that's a good idea. We could revise the article so that it's about the term rather than the substance. This is not an article about H20 (i.e., water) but rather about the term DHMO or dihydrogen monoxide used to show "how gullible" people are, in the context of being asked to ban (supposedly) dangerous environmental hazards.

The term was introduced in web pages and "petitions" with a two-fold strategy:

1. Get people to agree to ban the dangerous-sounding chemical
2. Expose their excessive readiness to ban it, as a form of social commentary or to make a political point

Unlike regular hoaxes, the point was not to get people to maintain belief in the false concept. No one wanted an actual ban on water! It was more like an April Fools joke, where the fun comes at the expense of the fooled person's realization (he can laugh along with us, preferably).

Gosh, I wish I had been patient enough to slow down and build consensus instead of overdoing "be bold" to the point of irresponsible recklessness. --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:34, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about revising the article to be about the term; that seems to be putting the cart before the horse. The hoax/parody/joke was the point, the term was created to make it work.

I think the overall tone and approach of the article is pretty good right now; it's only the title of the article and the noun used to describe it that generates the debate. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 15:54, 2 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused so is dihydrogen monoxide also called water, or is water the solvent that can dissolve this chemical?

if it's also called water then what is http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html talking about?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.230.3.250 (talk • contribs)

Dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is an unusual synonym for water. Water dissolves a number of things, and is used in industrial settings. Chris857 (talk) 23:01, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"49% of the candidates answered on behalf of the restriction."

What does this mean? Surely, "on behalf" is the wrong phrase?

Paul Magnussen (talk) 19:33, 12 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed a couple of examples from the Public efforts involving DHMO section, because the list is getting long and repetitive. I think we have gotten to the point where only actual, mistaken examples involving public officials should be included - not jokes or web-based hoaxes, because they're too common. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 14:10, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd dispute that DHMO was "brought to widespread public attention in 1997" - I certainly remember a mention in New Scientist in May 1996 which I'm pretty sure led to significant coverage in the British media at that time. Zohner might have led to some publicity in one country after May 1996, but Wikipedia is global and in any case the Snopes reference doesn't actually say that Zohner was the first to bring it to public attention as the article implies at present. 86.27.45.204 (talk) 20:14, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

the DHMO molecule looks like this:

DHMO is water!! gonna ban water for no reason? NO.

Words can be scary if you're not sure what they mean. Occasionally a well-developed hyperbole rises to the rank of hoax. Good craftsmanship gives the ring of credibility.

• "Hey! Your epidermis is showing!" (A lesser, short-lived prank played by high school students on elementary school students.)
• "His wife was a thespian before their marriage and even performed the act in front of paying customers" - Guaranteed Effective All-Occasion Non-Slanderous Political Smear Speech by Bill Garvin (MAD #139, December 1970) --A876 (talk) 00:54, 4 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, "dihydrogen monoxide" is not a hoax. But the article is not about dihymonox, but about a hoax involving dihymonox, hence the title. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:56, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No. It's not a hoax. It's deliberately one-sided in portrayal, but every word is true. That's the whole point of this exercise. K7L (talk) 01:26, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Every word is true, but the total effect may be false. This is a peculiarity of human language con men make good use of. By the way, you never stopped beating your spouse, right? Staszek Lem (talk) 03:16, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Dihydrogen monoxide hoax → Dihydrogen monoxide (meme) – The claim that dihydrogen monoxide is a "hoax" violates WP:NPOV and is false. Dihydrogen monoxide is real. The dihydrogen monoxide petition is an Internet meme which, by design, portrays this stuff (H₂O) in the worst possible light while still being technically correct and accurate - a means to prove a point - but neither the claim that dihydrogen monoxide exists nor the claims that specific safety issues or even fatalities are associated with it are false. There's a huge factual difference between "I disagree with the premise that dihydrogen monoxide should be banned" and "Dihydrogen monoxide is a hoax". It's real, various groups ranging from Red Cross to Coast Guard are doing what they can to minimise the dangers. Inserting blatantly POV terms like "hoax" into article titles is neither encyclopaedic nor helpful. K7L (talk) 01:26, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.

• Oppose Staszek Lem (talk) 03:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Support per WP:POVTITLE. Terms like "hoax", as statements of opinion, normally do not belong in article titles. K7L (talk) 03:39, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Support - Strikes me as though "hoax" isn't really the right word for this. That said, I'm not 100% sure "meme" is either. NickCT (talk) 12:33, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong oppose - The argument is that it should be "meme" because water is real. If this article is about water, it duplicates Water and should be merged there, not renamed. If it's about a meme that is not the same as simply "water" then we have the right name already. It is a hoax because by the very first sentence of the article it's clear you're trying to elicit a response and fool people into thinking it's more than it actually is (it's the act of trying to elicit a response from someone by framing water as scary that is the subject of the article and once you tell someone "oh it's just water," they are no longer afraid -- hence: hoax). --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  12:36, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @Rhododendrites: - This article is clearly not about water. It's about a "joke", "hoax" or "meme" or whatever you want to call it about water. I think it's a slightly more than a hoax, b/c there's a semi-instructive element to it which I don't think one usually associates with a hoax. NickCT (talk) 12:59, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• @NickCT: - (longish reply moved to #Discussion) --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Strong oppose, per Rhododendrites. There should be a policy or guideline preventing people who "don't get it" from nominating articles for such changes. That being said, if a better title is found, it might be worth considering, but I haven't seen it yet. It's a constructive/instructive hoax, not the type which one would associate with a scam or attempt to deceive for personal gain. -- Brangifer (talk) 13:37, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Facepalm This is the kind of stuff detrimental to wikipedia's credibility and the portrayal of its editors as humourless goons. The nominator's proposal is absolutely horrific, both from that aspect but perhaps rather more seriously that it is completely out of line with WP:AT policies & guidelines, chief among them WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NATURALDIS avoid parenthetical disambiguators and WP:CRITERIA #1: RECOGNISABILITY. Plus I'm dubious that it is really an internet meme sources please. If "hoax" is really absolutely intolerable, then I propose Dihydrogen monoxide prank. Cf. Prank (wikt:Prank) (redirect to Practical joke) and Hoax (wikt:Hoax). ^walk victor falk ^talk 13:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would Dihydrogen monoxide meme be better in your mind (i.e. no parenthesis)? Plus, who said anything about an internet meme? I think it's just a regular old meme. NickCT (talk) 15:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Many people think that the concept of "meme" is a pseudoscientific babble, a false analogy which explains nothing. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC'

• Not to be nitpicky (who am I kidding? that's exactly what I'm doing), what critics of memes (not to be confused with internet memes) complain is not that it is pseudoscience à la von Däniken and razor-sharpening pyramids, which can be dismissed in some of the most scathing words ever uttered by a scientist, das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch, but that it is bad science, as in difficult to test and falsify, and therefore not very helpful; a bit like string theory. Personally, I think a bit too much is made of the scientificness of a concept that Richard Dawkins intoduced a bit off-handedly at the end of a popular science book, and it should be considered more as a philosophical aid to help one adopt an evolutionary (R, V, S) weltanschauung. ^walk victor falk ^talk 03:46, 22 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment How about dihydrogen monoxide (joke)? It's not a hoax as it's carefully worded to all be true, but are we such humourless goons as to not be able to accept a joke as a joke without becoming offended and screaming "hoax!" at the top of our lungs in mock righteousness and indignation? K7L (talk) 15:10, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is your proposal that is a joke!! You are pov-pushing the dihydrogen monoxide agenda to present that terrible, terrible chemical substance as a harmless product that improves your mood and makes you laugh, like a good joke. In fact I suspect you are a paid shill of the dihydrogen monoxide industrial complex with a massive COI and should be summarily perma-banned forthwith. Dixit. ^walk victor falk ^talk 23:52, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

• • In this case it would be Dihydrogen monoxide joke - a term that indeed gets 10x more google hits than "dihydrogen monoxide hoax". By the way:

World English Dictionary

hoax (həʊks)

— n

1. a deception, esp a practical joke

Therefore I don't understand why you are so excited with the term "hoax", which is quite appropriate here. Staszek Lem (talk) 16:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Any additional comments:

• Yes it is a hoax, i.e., (a) a deliberately fabricated falsehood (b) made to masquerade as truth. re (a): The falsehood in question is that DHMO is an extremely dangerous substance to be banned. re (b): all true facts about HDMO properties are extactly deliberate masquerading tricks. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:07, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• The danger is real. Thousands have drowned over the years. No hoax there. As for whether a ban would be helpful, that's purely a difference of opinion. As such, placing "hoax" in a title is POV and misleading. K7L (talk) 03:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, they drowned. Do you know that 97% of people who died of cancer ate cucumbers and 47% did thatat least twice a day in summertime? Staszek Lem (talk) 15:53, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do cucumbers have to do with anything (aside from their dihydrogen monoxide content)? Dihydrogen monoxide doesn't merely correlate with deaths by drowning, it causes them by mechanisms which are well-known and documented. Effectively, this stuff in sufficient quantities displaces oxygen in the victim's lungs and the victim dies. That's all been scientifically proven; do you need a WP:RS? I'm sure it could be sourced to either of the RMS Titanic enquiries (the US and UK each did one), which are reliable and any copyright on the findings has long expired. K7L (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• @NickCT:: Re: "clearly not about water," I was just making a point based on comments like "the danger is real" below, which would seem to purport that this article addresses real dangers about water, which is not actually its intent (and if it were, it should be at water). Nonetheless, I do think hoax is still appropriate because there is an unstated fiction the whole idea rests upon: getting someone to believe dihydrogen monoxide is a harmful, unfamiliar substance (i.e. making sure they don't think you're talking about water). Looking at the Snopes link referenced in the article, people have been convinced to propose legislation on the subject -- a kind of notability that, to me, justifies "hoax." Two quotes from the article, the first of which comes from a New Zealand news source quoted by Snopes (and both of which happen to use the word "hoax":

  National MP Jacqui Dean has been caught out by a long-running hoax that seeks to trick gullible MPs into calling for a ban on "dihydrogen monoxide" — or water. A letter, signed by Ms Dean and sent to Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton, the minister in charge of drug policy, asked if the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs had a view on banning the "drug".

  In March 2004 the California municipality of Aliso Viejo (a suburb in Orange County) came within a cat's whisker of falling for this hoax after a paralegal there convinced city officials of the danger posed by this chemical. The leg-pull got so far as a vote's having been scheduled for the City Council on a proposed law that would have banned the use of foam containers at city-sponsored events because (among other things) they were made with DHMO, a substance that could "threaten human health and safety."

• --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  13:20, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Why would an article about drowning or lifesaving be at water? There's enough there to stand alone as a separate topic. Individual incidents involving this stuff get articles if they're historically notable - and many are. K7L (talk) 15:02, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • re "why ... at water" - by the virtue of wikipedia:Summary style. Staszek Lem (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • That makes no sense. Water and drowning are two separate topics, each of which can stand alone - and already does stand alone. Then there's Category:International maritime incidents... you intend to list each of these in the main article on water? Article scope needs to be constrained to manageable levels. Furthermore, that still doesn't address the inherent WP:POV in titling an article about a dihyrogen monoxide warning as dihydrogen monoxide hoax, where "hoax" is a very loaded term and inappropriate if what's here is technically entirely true. K7L (talk) 16:28, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yes it makes sense. If someone wants to create a summary section, "Dangers of water", which may include "drowning in water". Something makes me think that you did not click the link wikipedia:Summary style. Do it now. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:11, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • Furthermore, by your logic "joke" is also a very loaded term, why did you suggest such title for something "entirely true"? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:14, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    • OK, I got it. You are trying to perpetrate the DHMO hoax in the context of wikipedia, right? Staszek Lem (talk) 17:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      • What hoax? Dihydrogen monoxide doesn't stop being real just because you personally oppose the dihydrogen monoxide ban proposal. All we can do is present reliably-sourced facts in a WP:NEUTRAL manner and let the readers decide for themselves whether this stuff should be banned. K7L (talk) 17:44, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        • <ROTFL> Staszek Lem (talk) 19:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
          • I concur. I get the feeling we're being meta-pranked. --— Rhododendrites ^talk |  20:44, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• Surely we can find a more neutral term than "hoax"? It'd be difficult to find a less neutral term, short of creating articles with titles like "nonsensical Darwinian monkey business" or adopting the pro-death and anti-choice terminology of the abortion debate. 2001:5C0:1000:A:0:0:0:8D7 (talk) 20:59, 21 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
• I have tried to think of a more descriptive term than hoax, since it is a bit ambiguous and therefore open to misinterpretation. The phrase practical joke comes to mind, although, if used alone, it suffers from the same problems. That concept seems to be a fairly close description of the intent of the website, but it has an added dimension not included in the phrase. They wish to trick gullible people for the purpose of teaching them a lesson in critical thinking and scientific skepticism. They are aiming at people who "don't get it" because they are scientifically illiterate. Can we find a term which combines these ideas? -- Brangifer (talk) 03:07, 22 May 2014 (UTC) Ignore the edit summary. It's a copy/paste error.[reply]